"Beautiful! What have we got to do with the beautiful? We've done with the beautiful for ever. I feel as if I never wanted to see anything beautiful again. And you'll have to spend your time collecting geodes to send back for the miserable trash. I hate those old sea-weeds. You left everything we owned to perish in that fire, and brought away only that case of sea-weeds. I'll take it some time to start the fire in the stove. Beautiful! What right have you to think of the beautiful? It's a disgrace to be as poor as we are. The very bread for this supper isn't paid for, and never will be. Come to supper!" She snapped out these last words in a way inimitable and indescribable. "Priscilla," said the husband in a sad, solemn way, "I never knew anybody in my life who seemed so utterly exasperated by poverty as you." "You never knew anybody else that was tried by such poverty." "I saw thousands after the Chicago fire." "Yes, when they had the excitement all about them." "And who is the object of your exasperation? Who is responsible for your circumstances? Who but God?" "God didn't lose that sixty dollars, and He didn't lose that money in Chicago." "Well, now, my dear, I'm working hard at my book, and I think I'm making a good thing of it. I hope it'll bring us a lift." "A book on that horrid subject isn't going to sell. I wouldn't touch it with a pair of tongs: I'd run from it. Nobody'll read it but a few old long-haired geologists. I'd like to know what good all your geology and botany and those other horrid things ever did you. You couldn't make a cent out of all them put together. You're always paying expressage on fossils and bugs and sea-weeds and trash. All that comes of it is just waste." "Does anything but waste come of your fault-finding?" "Now, who's finding fault?" Dr. Lively left the table and took down his case of sea-weeds, and turned it over in his hand. "The only thing that came through the fire," he said musingly. "And of what account is it?" said Mrs. Lively. "It may prove to be of value," he said. "To-night's addition will make my collection very fine. I may take some premiums on it at fairs." He sat down and began to compare the specimens just received with his previous collection. "What is the use of looking over those things--miserable sea-weeds? You'd better bring in some wood and draw some water: it nearly breaks my back to draw water up that rickety-rackety well." "Good Heavens!" cried Dr. Lively, springing to his feet like one electrified. "What does it mean?" Mrs. Lively gazed at him: his hand was full of money, greenbacks. "I found them here, among the sea-weeds in the case." He counted them out on the table, Mrs. Lively standing by watching him, for once speechless. "It's just the amount we lost, and the same bills. See here: ten five-hundred-dollar bills, and this change that we lost in Chicago; and four ten-dollar bills and four fives that were lost here. They are the same bills. Who put them here?"