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THE COMET AND THE FIXED STAR.
71

"We never put a cent of the three hundred dollars into our own pockets," explained Mrs. Grubb. "Mr. Grubb was dreadfully opposed to my doing it, but every penny of it went to freeing our religious society from debt. It was a case of the greatest good of the greatest number, and I didn’t flinch. I thought it was a good deal more important that the Army of Present Perfection should have a roof over its head than that Lisa Bennett should be fed and clothed; that is, if both could not be done.’

"I don’t know the creed of the Army, but it seems to me your Presently Perfect soldiers would have been rather uncomfortable under their roof if Lisa Bennett had been naked and starving outside."

"Oh, it would never have come to that," responded Mrs. Grubb easily. "There is plenty of money in the world, and it belongs equally to the whole human race. I don’t recognize anybody’s right to have a dollar more than I have; but Mr. Grubb could never accept any belief that had been held less than a thousand years, and before he died he gave some money to a friend of his, and told him to pay me ten dollars every