The Golden Magnet Part 54

It may be thought that, with so great a sum of money--so large a fortune--I must have lived in great splendour during the rest of my life. But it was not so. Certainly I have always since enjoyed the comfort of a pleasant, well-kept, unostentatious home; but the fact is this--it was my fate to marry a woman generous almost to a fault. As you have seen, she began by giving the greatest treasure I found in the New World--herself--to me; and then, upon the strength of our having plenty of money, she was of opinion that its proper purpose was being spent in doing good to others.

My uncle and Mrs Landell were settled in a pleasant little estate of their own; and after a great deal of persuasion my father was induced to take upon himself the position of a country gentleman. One way and another our income became shrunk down to very reasonable proportions; though, after Lilla has done all the good that she can in the course of the year, we have always a little to spare.

My story is ended. And now that grey hairs have made their appearance, bringing with them sounder thought and the ripe judgment of experience, I often go over my adventures again, and chat about them with Tom, and Sally his wife, when I have taken a run over to their prosperous farm; but in spite of all the success that has attended me and mine, I think, have thought, and I hope I shall still think to my last day, that my journey to the New World, my adventures, and all I gained, would have been but so much vanity and emptiness had I not won Lilla, who has shed upon my life a suns.h.i.+ne such as has proved that after all _she_ was the true gold.

THE END.