Good heavens, how quiet everything was otherwise! He could hear children's voices from afar, even the very vibrations were audible. Hammering and sawing could be heard every now and then in the new house at the corner of the beach street and the road that turned up this way; the sound seemed to proceed from an empty space. The staccato puffs of the groaning steamer could still be faintly heard in the distance. The house he was in lay in a free and open space, it was therefore that he had so extensive a view and could hear everything so distinctly; all this, however, would be over when once the fields were parcelled off for building purposes. He fell into deep thought on this subject; would it not be wise for him to buy up land? He wished to do so very much; but house and ground and everything they had belonged to his wife. His own little fortune was invested in the tiny house and garden to the right, where his mother lived. There are many advantages in having a rich wife, even though the marriage contract may leave her free to dispose of her fortune as she chooses; many little comforts are gained which make life pleasanter and work easier; besides it certainly increases one's authority--particularly a clergyman's. Much good may be done which others have to deny themselves, and this may be turned to power. He had felt this and had felt the comfort of it. It pleased him. But----. All "buts" proceed from the person who has the disposal of the fortune. "Just as the congregation is subject to Christ----" Hush!--Again he began to read, aloud this time: "An outer foundation for justification is therefore that Jesus has fulfilled the laws; the inner condition is that the sinner believe this. However much God may be reconciled with the world, He can grant His grace to that sinner only who is attached to Christ through faith in Him as his Saviour." The book was lowered, the minister was not conscious of what he was reading. There was a certain passage in Ephesians that made him pause. If the wife be not subject in all things, ... now, just the fact of the wife having the disposal of her fortune, would sow seeds of dissent.