Fourteen Elm Street

"You are laying up treasure, Miss Innes," he said brokenly, "where
neither moth nor rust corrupt, nor thieves break through and steal."

"It is certainly a safer place than Sunnyside," I admitted. And the
thought of the carpet permitted him to smile. He stood just inside the
doorway, looking from the luxury of the house to the beauty of the view.

"The rich ought to be good," he said wistfully. "They have so much
that is beautiful, and beauty is ennobling. And yet--while I ought to
say nothing but good of the dead--Mr. Armstrong saw nothing of this
fair prospect. To him these trees and lawns were not the work of God.
They were property, at so much an acre. He loved money, Miss Innes.
He offered up everything to his golden calf. Not power, not ambition,
was his fetish: it was money." Then he dropped his pulpit manner, and,
turning to me with his engaging smile: "In spite of all this luxury,"
he said, "the country people here have a saying that Mr. Paul Armstrong
could sit on a dollar and see all around it. Unlike the summer people,
he gave neither to the poor nor to the church. He loved money for its
own sake."

"And there are no pockets in shrouds!" I said cynically.

I sent him home in the car, with a bunch of hot-house roses for his
wife, and he was quite overwhelmed. As for me, I had a generous glow
that was cheap at the price of a church carpet. I received less
gratification--and less gratitude--when I presented the new silver
communion set to St. Barnabas.