ers say,
'I never noticed it!' What are eyes for?"

If I admired some creeper-covered cottage, picturesquely old and
tumble-down, he would ask me how many rooms I thought it contained--if
I fancied the roof would keep out rain or snow, and how far I supposed
it was convenient and comfortable for a man and his wife and six
children to live in. In some very practical problems which he once set
me, I had to suppose myself a labourer, with nine shillings a week,
and having found out what sum that would come to in half a year, to
write on my slate how I would spend the money, to the best advantage,
in clothing and feeding two grown-up people and seven children of
various ages. As I knew nothing of the cost of the necessaries of
life, I went, by Mr. Andrewes' advice, to Nurse Bundle for help.

"What do beef and mutton cost?" was my first question, as I sat with
an important air at the nursery table, slate in hand.

"Now bless the dear boy's innocence?" cried Mrs. Bundle. "You may
leave the beef and mutton, love. It's not much meat a family gets
that's reared on nine shillings a week."

After a series of calculations for oatmeal-porridge, onion-potage, and
other modest dainties, during which Mrs. Bundle constantly fell back
on the "bits of things in the garden," I said decidedly--

"They can't have any clothes, so it's no good thinking about it."

"Children can't be let go bare-backed," said Mrs. Bundle, with equal
decision. "She must take in washing. For in all reason, boots can't be
expected to come out of nine shillings a week, and as many mouths to
feed."

"She must take in washing, sir," I announced with a resigned air, and
the old-fashioned gravity peculiar to me, when I returned to the
Rectory next day. "Boots can't come out of nine shillings a week."

The Rector smiled.

"And suppose one of the boys catches a fever, as you did; and they
can't have other people's clothes to the house, because of the
infection. And then there will be the doctor's bill to pay--what
then?"

By this time I had so thoroughly realized the position of the needy
family, that I had forgotten it was not a real case, or rather, that
no special one was meant. And I begged, with tears in my eyes, that I
might apply the contents of my alms-box to paying the doctor's bill.

Many a lesson like this, with oft-repeated practical remarks about
healthy situations, proper drainage, roomy cottages, and the like, was
engraven by constant repetit