"I don't know, my dear; I have it all down in a book, but I don't recollect the amount. It varies with different years. Last year was a bad season for the mushrooms, and this is a good one; but I have never failed to make my thirty dollars but once." "What did you do then?" asked Rhoda. "I made it up in another way." "If you had put all that in the bank, now, you would have saved quite a sum by this time," said Rhoda, with a mischievous smile. "Why don't you?" "I think it is safer where it is," answered Aunt Hannah, dryly. "It would never do for me to begin to save in that way; I should grow too much in earnest about it." "You, Aunt Hannah?" "Yes, dear. I am naturally very much in earnest and inclined to persevere in what I undertake; and besides, it is in me to be fond of money for its own sake. I should never dare to make it an object." "But all rich people are not stingy or mean or grasping, Aunt Hannah. I am sure Uncle Evans is not." "No, indeed. He is just the man to be rich, for he gives out to all around him. It is not the being rich that hurts people, child remember that; it is the trusting in uncertain riches that makes the entrance hard to the kingdom. It is not money, but the love of money, that is the root of all evil. The world does us no harm so long as we keep it at arm's length. It only hurts us when we let it get inside our hearts, and the poor, and especially folks in moderate circumstances, may do so, perhaps, quite as much as the rich. I know plenty of women in this little village who spend far more time and thought, and, according to their means, more money, on their dress than your aunt Evans does on hers." Rhoda was silent, thinking that this was the case with her own mother, and wondering whether she were one of the people in moderate circumstances who were in Aunt Hannah's mind. But she quickly dismissed the idea, and began on one of the two subjects which she had, as it were, brought from home to talk over with Aunt Hannah: "Aunt Hannah, there are two things that trouble me." "Only two?" asked Aunt Hannah. "Why, no—only two that I know of," answered Rhoda, considering; "only two of any importance, I believe." "And one of them, perhaps, is not so very important," said Aunt Hannah. "Are you thinking about what you heard my brother saying this afternoon? You mustn't let that worry you." "Oh, I don't," said Rhoda; "only I am sorry I offended him. I know he doesn't like to have me call him 'Uncle,' and I am sorry I answered him back. However, I dare say he will never think of it again; I am too insignificant to trouble him." Aunt Hannah sighed. She was pretty sure her brother would think of it again, and she knew that nothing which crossed his wishes or designs was too insignificant to vex him. "Since I have guessed wrong, I won't try to guess again. I will let you tell me your two troubles."