or Graham, taking a
sovereign out of the purse. "I shall do more for you yet, but in the
meantime here is what you have honestly earned to-day."

"If I thought so, Sir,"----said the poor boy, looking wistfully at the
glittering coin. "If I was quite sure there could be no harm----, but I
must speak first to mother about it, Sir! She has seen better days once,
and she is sadly afraid of my ever taking charity. Mother mends my
clothes, and teaches me herself, and works very hard in other ways, but
she is quite bed-ridden, and we have scarcely anything but the trifle I
make by working in the fields. It is very difficult to get a job at all
sometimes, and if you could put me in the way of earning that money,
Sir, it would make mother very happy. She is a little particular, and
would not taste a morsel that I could get by asking for it."

"That is being very proud!" said Harry.

"No, Sir! it is not from pride," replied Evan; "but mother says a
merciful God has provided for her many years, and she will not begin to
distrust Him now. Her hands are always busy, and her heart is always
cheerful. She rears many little plants by her bedside, which we sell,
and she teaches a neighbour's children, besides sewing for any one who
will employ her, for mother's maxim always was, that there can be no
such thing as an idle Christian."

"Very true!" said Lady Harriet. "Even the apostles were mending their
nets and labouring hard, whenever they were not teaching. Either the
body or the mind should always be active."

"If you saw mother, that is exactly her way, for she does not eat the
bread of idleness. Were a stranger to offer us a blanket or a dinner in
charity, she would rather go without any than take it. A very kind lady
brought her a gown one day, but mother would only have it if she were
allowed to knit as many stockings as would pay for the stuff. I dare not
take a penny more for my work than is due, for she says, if once I begin
receiving alms, I might get accustomed to it."

"That is the good old Scotch feeling of former days," observed Major
Graham. "It was sometimes carried too far then, but there is not enough
of it now. Your mother should have lived fifty years ago."

"You may say so, indeed, Sir! We never had a drop of broth from the
soup-kitchen all winter, and many a day we shivered without a fire,
though the society offered her sixpence a-week for coals, but she says
'the given morsel is soon done;' and now, many o