I'm just dumfounded at your goodness. It takes my speech away. I only
know this, Candace: God will be very good to you."

"Tut! tut!" replied Sister Soulsby, "that's all right, you dear thing. I
know just how you feel. Don't dream of being under obligation to explain
it to me, or to thank us at all. We've had all sorts of comfort out of
the thing--Soulsby and I. We used to get downright lonesome, here all
by ourselves, and we've simply had a winter of pleasant company instead,
that s all. Besides, there's solid satisfaction in knowing that at
last, for once in our lives we've had a chance to be of some real use to
somebody who truly needed it. You can't imagine how stuck up that makes
us in our own conceit. We feel as if we were George Peabody and Lady
Burdett-Coutts, and several other philanthropists thrown in. No,
seriously, don't think of it again. We're glad to have been able to do
it all; and if you only go ahead now, and prosper and be happy, why,
that will be the only reward we want."

"I hope we shall do well," said Alice. "Only tell me this, Candace. You
do think I was right, don't you, in insisting on Theron's leaving the
ministry altogether? He seems convinced enough now that it was the right
thing to do; but I grow nervous sometimes lest he should find it harder
than he thought to get along in business, and regret the change--and
blame me."

"I think you may rest easy in your mind about that," the other
responded. "Whatever else he does, he will never want to come within
gunshot of a pulpit again. It came too near murdering him for that."

Alice looked at her doubtfully. "Something came near murdering him, I
know. But it doesn't seem to me that I would say it was the ministry.