“Well, it’s very mysterious,” said Mrs. Lively.  “That money went just as the other did in Chicago.  We must be haunted by the spirit of some burglar or miser.”

Cards were posted in the stores and post-office, offering five dollars reward for the lost money.

“A pretty affair,” said Mrs. Lively, “to payout five dollars just for somebody’s shiftlessness!”

“To recover sixty we can afford to pay five,” said the doctor.

Shortly after this an express package from Chicago was delivered for the doctor at his door.  Mrs. Lively was quite excited, hoping she scarce knew what from this arrival.  The half hour till the doctor came home to tea seemed interminable.  She sat by watching eagerly as the doctor cut the cords and broke the seals and unwrapped—­what?  Some things very beautiful, but nothing that could answer that ceaseless, persistent cry of the human, “What shall we eat, what shall we drink, and wherewithal shall we be clothed?”

“Nothing but some more of those miserable sea-weeds!” exclaimed Mrs. Lively, “and the express on them was fifty cents.”

“They are beautiful,” cried the doctor with enthusiasm.

“Beautiful!  What have we got to do with the beautiful?  We’ve done with the beautiful for ever.  I feel as if I never wanted to see anything beautiful again.  And you’ll have to spend your time collecting geodes to send back for the miserable trash.  I hate those old sea-weeds.  You left everything we owned to perish in that fire, and brought away only that case of sea-weeds.  I’ll take it some time to start the fire in the stove.  Beautiful!  What right have you to think of the beautiful?  It’s a disgrace to be as poor as we are.  The very bread for this supper isn’t paid for, and never will be.  Come to supper!” She snapped out these last words in a way inimitable and indescribable.

“Priscilla,” said the husband in a sad, solemn way, “I never knew anybody in my life who seemed so utterly exasperated by poverty as you.”

“You never knew anybody else that was tried by such poverty.”

“I saw thousands after the Chicago fire.”

“Yes, when they had the excitement all about them.”

“And who is the object of your exasperation?  Who is responsible for your circumstances?  Who but God?”

“God didn’t lose that sixty dollars, and He didn’t lose that money in Chicago.”

“Well, now, my dear, I’m working hard at my book, and I think I’m making a good thing of it.  I hope it’ll bring us a lift.”

“A book on that horrid subject isn’t going to sell.  I wouldn’t touch it with a pair of tongs:  I’d run from it.  Nobody’ll read it but a few old long-haired geologists.  I’d like to know what good all your geology and botany and those other horrid things ever did you.  You couldn’t make a cent out of all them put together.  You’re always paying expressage on fossils and bugs and sea-weeds and trash.  All that comes of it is just waste.”