fraid."

Mr. Durnford laughed.

"How if I were to commiserate you, then?" he said.

"No, sir," said "Cobbler" Horn gravely, "not that either. It's the Lord's
will after all; and it's a great joy to me to be able to do so much that I
have long wished to do. It's the responsibility that I feel."

"Very good," replied the minister; "such joy is the purest pleasure wealth
can give. But the responsibility of such a position as yours, is, no
doubt, as you say, very great."

"Yes, sir; I feel that I hold all this wealth in trust from God; and I
want to be a faithful steward. I am resolved to use my Lord's money
exactly as I believe He desires that I should--in fact as He Himself
would use it, if He were in my place."

"Excellent, Mr. Horn!" exclaimed the minister; "you have spoken like a
Christian."

"Thank you, sir. But there's another thing; it seems so dreadful that
one man should have so much money. Do you know, sir, I'm almost a
millionaire?"

He made this announcement in very much the same tone in which he would
have informed the minister that he was stricken with some dire disease.

"Is your trouble so great as that?" asked Mr. Durnford, in mock dismay.

"Yes, sir; and it's a very serious matter indeed. It doesn't seem right
for me to be so rich, while so many have too little, and not a few nothing
at all."

"That can soon be rectified," said Mr. Durnford.

"Perhaps so, sir; though it may not be so easy as you suppose. But there's
another matter that troubles me. I can't think that this great wealth has
been all acquired by fair means. Indeed I have only too much reason to
suspect that it was not. I feel ashamed that some of the money which my
uncle made should have become mine. I feel as though a curse were on it."

"Ah!" exclaimed the minister, with a long-drawn sigh, "such feelings do
you credit, Mr. Horn; but don't you see that God means you to turn that
curse into a blessing?"

"Yes; and yet I am almost inclined to wish my uncle had taken his money
with him."

"Scarcely a charitable wish, from any point of view," said Mr. Durnford,
smiling. "It seems to me that nothing could have been better than the
arrangement as it stands."

"Well, at any rate, I wish it were possible to restore their money to any
persons who may have been wronged."

"A laudible, but impossible wish, my dear sir; but, though you cannot
restore your uncle's wealth to those from whom it may have been wrongfully
acquired, you