“Oh, before all this is used up, I must try to get earning myself.  But this, with all those vegetables you gave me yesterday, will give me such a start.  I will buy a whole barrel of flour, it spends so much better—­and get some coals laid in for winter.  They are the heaviest expense.”

“Yes,” I said, impulsively, “and flannels for the children.  It will be so much better than crape.”

“Crape!” she ejaculated.  “I don’t need crape for my husband.  I have too much mourning in my heart to put any on outside.”

I meant some day, when I felt pretty courageous, to repeat her words to Mr. Winthrop.  Once outside, I found the glorious expansion of sky and horizon very grateful after the narrow limits of the little cottage.  At luncheon Mr. Winthrop asked if I had paid my visit yet to Mill Road.  I acknowledged, with a slight crimsoning of cheek, that I had conveyed to Mrs. Larkum a small sum of money.

“No doubt she will have a crape weeper as long as the widow Blake’s.”

“I did not think you noticed the trivialities of women’s attire so minutely.”

“I do not as a rule; but in the case of your intimate friends, it is natural I should endeavor to discover their especial charms.”

“Mrs. Larkum said she was going to lay out the money I gave her chiefly in flour and coals.  I suggested flannel would be much better also to buy than crape.  She said she had no need to put on mourning; she already wore it in her heart.”

“She is a very sensible woman,” my guardian replied.

Then I described, as minutely as I could and with all the pathos I could command, the grim surroundings of this poor family—­the grandfather, with his serene, sightless face and strangely deep trust in Providence; the clean, but faded, worn garments they all had on—­not one of them, apparently, possessed of a decent suit of clothes; and then their horror of help from the town.  Mrs. Flaxman wiped her eyes sympathetically when I repeated the grateful words my gift had evoked, and said with trembling voice:  “It just seems as if the Lord sent you there, Medoline.”

“Do you think the Ruler of this vast universe has leisure or inclination to turn his gaze on such trivialities?  No doubt suns and systems are still being sent out completed on their limitless circles.  To conceive their Creator turning from such high efforts to send Medoline with a ten dollar bill to the Larkums, to my mind borders on profanity,” Mr. Winthrop said, with evident disgust.

“The infinitely great and infinitely small alike receive His care.  Perhaps it required stronger power from God to make you give me the money and then to make me willing to carry it to them, than it does to create a whole cluster of suns and planets.  I think our wills limit God’s power more than anything he ever created, except Satan and his angels.”

“You are quite a full-fledged theologian, little one.  I am surprised you do not engage more heartily in home mission work.”