“Wealth heaped on wealth, nor truth nor safety buys;
The dangers gather as the treasures rise.”
—DR. JOHNSON.
DR. LANDRETH had an errand down-town. Mildred stood at the window looking after him with loving, admiring eyes. He turned at the gate to lift his hat and kiss his hand to her with a bow and smile, then sped on his way, she watching until his manly form had disappeared in the distance and the gathering darkness; for evening was closing in.
But even now she did not turn from the window, but still stood there, gazing into vacancy, her thoughts full of the strange revelation and surprising gift he had made to her within the last hour.
She would go presently to mother and sisters with the pleasant news, but first she must have a little time alone with her best Friend, to pour out her gratitude to Him and seek strength for the new duties and responsibilities now laid upon her, the new dangers and temptations likely to beset her path.
A few moments had been passed thus when her mother’s gentle rap was heard at the door of her room. Mildred hastened to open it and to unfold her wondrous tale, sure of entire, loving sympathy in all the contending feelings which agitated her.
She was not disappointed; but while Mrs. Keith fully understood and appreciated Mildred’s fear of the peculiar temptations of wealth, she took a more hopeful view.
“Dear daughter,” she said, “trust in Him who has promised, ‘As thy days so shall thy strength be,’ and take with joy this good gift He has sent you. Keep close to Him and you will be safe, for ‘He giveth more grace.’”
There was great and unqualified rejoicing among the younger members of the family when they learned the news—“they were so glad that hard times were over for dear Milly, who had always been so helpful and kind to everybody;” and so thoroughly did they believe in her goodness that they had no fear for her such as she felt for herself.
“Milly, what are you going to do with so much money?” asked Annis, hanging about her sister’s chair; “you can never spend it all.”
“Spend it!” cried Don contemptuously. “Only silly people think money was made just to spend. Wise ones save it up for time of need.”
“The truly wise don’t hoard all they have, Don,” remarked Ada gravely.
“No; of course they must live, and they’ll pay their way honestly if they are the right sort of folks.”
“And if they are that,” said Mildred, with a sweet, bright smile irradiating her features, “they will feel that the money God gives them is not wholly their own, to save and to spend.”
“Oh no, to be sure! and what a nice big tenth you’ll have to give now, Milly,” exclaimed Annis. “I wish you’d find some work for me to do and pay me for it, so that I’d have more money to give to missions.”
“I’ll pay you ten cents for every hour you spend at the piano in faithful practice,” was Mildred’s answer, as she playfully drew her little pet sister to a seat upon her knee.
“O Milly! will you really?” cried the child, clapping her hands in delight; “but that will be twenty cents a day when I practise two hours, and I mean to, every day but Sunday.”
“And I make Fan the same offer,” Mildred said, catching a half wistful, half eager glance from the great gray eyes of that quiet, demure little maiden.
The gray eyes sparkled and danced, their owner saying, “O Milly, thank you ever so much! I’ll be sure to earn twenty or thirty cents every day.”
“Forty or fifty cents a day for you to pay, Milly!” Annis said in some anxiety.
“Don’t be concerned, little sister, my purse can stand even so grievous a drain as that,” returned Mildred gayly.
“Mildred,” said Ada, sighing slightly, “I can hardly help envying you the blessing of having so much money to do good with.”
“Perhaps your turn will come; at your age I had no more prospect of it than you have now,” Mildred said, gently putting Annis aside and rising to leave the room; for she heard her husband’s step in the hall, and it was her wont to hasten to meet him with a welcoming smile. But pausing a moment at Ada’s side, “It is a great responsibility,” she added in an earnest undertone; “you must help me with your prayers and sisterly warnings, to meet it aright.”
A liberal gift to each benevolent enterprise of the church to which she belonged was the first use Mildred made of her newly acquired wealth. Next her thoughts busied themselves with plans to increase the comfort and happiness of her own dear ones; after that of friends and neighbors.
There were some of these who might not be approached as objects of charity, yet whose means were so small as to afford them little beyond the bare necessaries of life. Meantime her husband was thinking of her and how he might add to her comfort and pleasure.
It was now early in November, but the woods had not lost all their autumnal beauty, and the weather was unusually mild for the time of year. They had had many delightful walks and drives together.
Now Dr. Landreth proposed a trip to Chicago, and Mildred gave a joyful assent. There would be ten miles of staging, then three or four hours of railway travel, making a journey just long enough for a pleasure trip, they thought; and a short sojourn in the city would be an agreeable variety to Mildred at least, she having been scarcely outside of Pleasant Plains for the last six or eight years.
With a heart full of quiet happiness and overflowing with gratitude to the Giver of all good, she set about the needful preparation. No great amount of it was needed, as they were only going sightseeing and shopping; it could all be done in one day, and they would start early the next morning.
Alone in her own room, packing her trunk, her thoughts reverted to a friend, a most estimable widow lady, a member of the same church with herself, who was enduring a great fight with adversity, having an aged mother and several small children to support.
“They must be in need,” Mildred said half aloud to herself, pausing in her work. “How nice it would be to give them a little help without their knowing whence it came! Yes, I shall do it.”
She rose from her kneeling posture beside her trunk, went to her writing-desk, enclosed a ten-dollar bill in a blank sheet of paper, and that in an envelope which she sealed and directed to Mrs. Mary Selby, the lady in question.
She wrote the address in a disguised hand, and following Rupert to the outer door that evening as he was starting down-town after tea, asked him to drop that note into the post-office for her as he passed.
He readily complied, and her secret was between the Master and herself, as she desired it to be.
The little jaunt was an entire success, and the happy bride and groom returned from it loaded with presents for the dear ones at home. There was an easy-chair for father, a handsome set of furs for mother, napery for Zillah, a silk dress for Ada, a fine soft merino for each of the younger girls; beside books and a variety of smaller gifts for all, even Celestia Ann having been kindly and generously remembered.
It was a glad home-coming, a merry, happy time to all the family. And Mildred was younger, prettier, gayer in appearance and manner than they had seen her for years.