“Mother,” he said, “I have thought a great deal of that dream of yours.  I hope that the touch of Midas may not be baneful this time.”

“I trust not, my dear; you have had a taste of the stern, rugged nurse.”

“And, mother, I know I failed egregiously where the others rose.”

“But you were rising.”

“Then you will let me do nothing for you, and I feel myself sneaking into your inheritance, to the exclusion of all the rest, in a back-door sort of way.”

“My dear Allen, it can’t be helped, you have honestly loved your Elf from her infancy, when she had nothing, and she really loved you at the very worst.  Love is so much more than gold, that it really signifies very little which of you has the money.  You and she have both gone through a good deal, and it depends upon you now whether the possession becomes a blessing to yourselves and others.  Don’t vex about our not having a share, you know yourself how much happier we all are without the load, and there will never be any anxiety now.  I shall always fall back on you, if I want anything.”

“That is right,” said Allen, clearing up a good deal as she looked up brightly in his face.  “You promise me.”

“Of course I do,” she said smiling.  “I’m not proud.”

“And you did make Armine consent to our paying those expenses of his.  That was good of you, but the boy only does it out of obedience.”

“Yes, he would like a little bit of self-willed penance, but it is much better for him to submit, bodily and mentally.”

“Elvira has asked me whether we can’t, after all, build the Church and all the rest which he wanted so much, and give it to him.”

Caroline smiled, she would not vex Allen by saying how this was merely in the spirit of the story book, endowing everybody with what they wanted, but she said, “Build by all means, and endow, when you have had time to see what is needed, and what is good for the people, but not for Armine’s sake, you know.  He had much better serve his apprenticeship and learn his work somewhere else.  He would tell you so himself.”

“I daresay.  He would talk of the touch of Midas again.  Elvira will be sadly disappointed.  She had some fancy of presenting him to it as soon as he was ordained!”

“Getting the fairies meantime to build the whole concern in secret?  Dear Elfie, her plans are generous and kind.  Tell her, with my love, that her Church must not be a shrine for Armine, but that perhaps he and it will be fit for each other in some five years’ time.  Meantime, if she wants to make somebody happy, there’s that excellent hardworking curate of Eleanor’s, who has done more good in Kenminster than I ever saw done there before.”

“I don’t see why Kencroft should get all the advantages!”

“Ah!  You ungrateful boy!  Now if Rob had carried off Elfie, you might complain!”

At which Allen could not but laugh.