Isaac obeyed in his half-childish way, but before finishing he stopped. "Yes, I made myself rich, sure enough," he said, with a momentary gleam of satisfaction. "I toiled, and I saved, and I did it all. But I didn't make myself poor. It was that wretched thief, Daisy—as deserves to be hung too." "We needn't think about him," said Daisy. "He will be punished some day, one way or another. People always are, if they go on in wrong-doing. I like better to think of it the other way—that God took away your money, so that you might be free to think about Him. O father, I do so want you to learn to serve God." Isaac was silent for some seconds, and when he spoke it was with a recurrence to Daisy's text. "Makes himself rich—yet has nothing," he muttered. "That wasn't me, Daisy. I'd got lots,—only it's all gone now—all gone." "You had lots of gold, father, but that was nothing. It couldn't make you happy. It couldn't keep you from dying. It couldn't take you to Heaven. You had the gold and you were poor; and now the gold is gone, I want you to be rich—really rich. I want you to be rich in the love of the Lord Jesus. Father dear, won't you try to come to Him, and tell Him you are sorry you haven't thought more about Him, and ask Him to forgive you everything and to make you His very own for ever?" "I don't know that I durst," said Isaac tremblingly. "I don't know that I durst, Daisy. And I don't know how." But when Daisy knelt beside him, and prayed aloud for him, in pleading words which presently ended in a burst of weeping, Isaac was strangely moved. He bent his head low, and tried to join in, murmuring the words after her; and when she broke down he said hurriedly, "Don't you—now don't you, Daisy. I'll never speak about the gold any more, Daisy." CHAPTER XVII. MONEY AGAIN. THAT Isaac should never again allude to his lost gold was hardly to be expected, more especially with his infirm memory. But from that day it became apparent that a marked change was passing over the poor old man. He clung yet more to Daisy, and evidently liked to hear her voice reading from the Bible or speaking to him of the things of God, so long left utterly out of his life. And though at times he broke out into his old moanings, he would frequently check himself, saying, with sudden recollection, "No, no, I'm not a-going to cry for the gold,—am I, Daisy?" And later on he began sometimes to add, "It was God took the gold, wasn't it, Daisy?" He was very feeble in mind, and very ignorant also. Daisy was often sorely disappointed to find how little he could understand, how rapidly the impression made upon him one hour would fade away the next. But Mr. Roper, to whom she one day confided her distress, warned her not to expect too much.