Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 12, No. 33, December, 1873

"Couldn't."

"If you don't tell me what's the matter—Why couldn't you?"

"No money!"

"No money? Where's the purse?"

"Here 'tis;" and he handed it to her.

She opened it and found it empty. "Where's the money?" she demanded in great alarm.

"Dunno."

"What did you do with it?"

"Nothin'."

By dint of a few dozen more questions she arrived at the information that when he had opened the purse to pay the first bill he found it empty.

"Why didn't you look on the floor?"

"Did look."

"And feel in your pocket?"

"Did."

"I suppose you couldn't be satisfied till you'd opened the purse to count the money. You're a perfect Charity Cockloft with your curiosity. And then you went off into one of your dreams, and forgot to clasp the purse. Go look for it right at the spot where you counted the money."

"Didn't count it."

"Well, where you opened the purse in the street."

"Didn't open it in the street."

"The money just crawled out of the purse, did it?"

"Dunno."

The house was searched, the store, the street, but all in vain. Dr. Lively was questioned: Did he take the money from the purse when it was under her pillow? He didn't even know before that the purse had been found. The house had been everywhere securely fastened, and the bed-room door locked.

"Well, it's very mysterious," said Mrs. Lively. "That money went just as the other did in Chicago. We must be haunted by the spirit of some burglar or miser."

Cards were posted in the stores and post-office, offering five dollars reward for the lost money.

"A pretty affair," said Mrs. Lively, "to payout five dollars just for somebody's shiftlessness!"

"To recover sixty we can afford to pay five," said the doctor.

Shortly after this an express package from Chicago was delivered for the doctor at his door. Mrs. Lively was quite excited, hoping she scarce knew what from this arrival. The half hour till the doctor came home to tea seemed interminable. She sat by watching eagerly as the doctor cut the cords and broke the seals and unwrapped—what? Some things very beautiful, but nothing that could answer that ceaseless, persistent cry of the human, "What shall we eat, what shall we drink, and wherewithal shall we be clothed?"

"Nothing but some more of those miserable sea-weeds!" exclaimed Mrs. Lively, "and the express on them was fifty cents."

"They are beautiful," cried the doctor with enthusiasm.

"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?"

"I don't know," replied Mrs. Lively in a low tone: "I didn't." She spoke as though she was dealing with something supernatural.

In the case of sea-weeds, the only thing that came through the fire! How often had she pronounced it worthless! What a spite she had conceived against it! How the sight of it had all along exasperated her!

"It is very strange," said the doctor, believing in his secret soul that his wife had put the money there and forgotten it. "Have you no recollection of putting the money here?" he said cautiously. "Try to think."