in Grace's Bible. She has prayed over it, thanked over it, interceded
over it, for herself, for it, for others. How different, indeed, from
ordinary gold, from common sin-bought mammon; how different from that
unblest store, which Roger Acton covets; how purified from meannesses,
and separate from harms! This is of that money, the scarcest coins of
all the world, endued with all good properties in heaven and in earth,
whereof it had been written, "The silver is mine, and the gold is mine,
saith the Lord of hosts."

Such alone are truly riches--well-earned, well-saved, well-sanctified,
well-spent. The wealthiest of European capitalists--the Croesus of
modern civilization--may be but a pauper in that better currency,
whereof a sample has been shown in the store of Jonathan Floyd.




CHAPTER XV.

ANOTHER DISCOVERY, AND THE EARNEST OF GOOD THINGS.


"DAME, here's one o' Ben's gallipots he flung away: it's naught
but honey, dame--marked so--no crock of gold; don't expect it; no such
thing; luck like that isn't for such as me: though, being as it is, the
babes may like it, with their dry bread: open it, good-wife: I hope the
water mayn't ha' spoilt it."

The notable Mary Acton produced certain scissors, hanging from her
pocket by a tape, and cut a knot, which to Roger had been Gordian's.