difference to his happiness. He fancied honest Jones, the butcher, had
more mere pleasure from the silver snuff-box he had given him, than he
had himself from his fortune. Relieved he certainly was, but the relief
was not happiness. His debt had been the stone that blocked up the gate
of Paradise: the stone was rolled away, but the gate was not therefore
open. He seemed for the first time beginning to understand what he had
so often said, and in public too, and had thought he understood, that
God Himself, and not any or all of His gifts, is the life of a man. He
had got rid of the dread imagination that God had given him the money in
anger, as He had given the Israelites the quails, nor did he find that
the possession formed any barrier between him and God: his danger, now
seemed that of forgetting the love of the Giver in his anxiety to spend
the gift according to His will.

"You and I ought to be very happy, my love," he said, as now they were
walking home.

He had often said so before, and Dorothy had held her peace; but now,
with her eyes on the ground, she rejoined, in a low, rather broken
voice,

"Why, papa?"

"Because we are lifted above the anxiety that was crushing us into the
very mud," he answered, with surprise at her question.

"It never troubled me so much as all that," she answered. "It is a great
relief to see you free from it, father; but otherwise, I can not say
that it has made much difference to me."