so glad to hear him speak so kindly,--so like old times. "If
thee'd like to go, John, I'll stand treat."

"Thou stand treat!" said he, with half a sneer: "Has't got a fortun',
wench?"

"Nay," said she, "but I've gotten the pint o' ale."

"Gotten what?" said he.

"The pint o' ale!" said she.

John still didn't understand her, till the faithful creature reached
down an old stocking from under a loose brick up the chimney, and
counted out her daily pint of ale in the shape of three hundred and
sixty-five threepences, _i.e.,_ L4 11_s._ 3_d._, and put them into his
hand, exclaiming, "Thou shalt have thee holiday, John!"

John was ashamed, astonished, conscience-stricken, charmed, and wouldn't
touch it. "Hasn't thee had thy share? Then I'll ha' no more! "he said.
He kept his word. They kept their wedding-day with mother,--and the
wife's little capital was the nucleus of a series of frugal investments,
that ultimately swelled out into a shop, a factory, warehouses, a
country seat, carriage, and, perhaps, a Liverpool Mayor.

In the same way, a workman of even the humblest sort, whose prosperity
and regularity of conduct show to his fellow-workmen what industry,
temperance, manly tenderness, and superiority to low and sensual
temptation can effect, in endearing a home which is bright even amidst
the gloom of poverty--such a man does good as well as the most eloquent
writer that ever wrote. If there were a few patriarchs of the people
such as this, their beneficial influence would soon be sensibly felt by
society at large. A life well spent is worth any number of speeches. For
example is a language far more eloquent than words: it is instruction in
action--wisdom at work.

A man's daily life is the best test of his moral and social state. Take
two men, for instance, both working at the same trade and earning the
same money; yet how different they may be as respects their actual
condition. The one looks a free man; the other a slave. The one lives in
a snug cottage; the other in a mud hovel. The one has always a decent
coat to his back; the other is in rags. The children of the one are
clean, well dressed, and at school; the children of the other are dirty,
filthy, and often in the gutter. The one possesses the ordinary comforts
of life, as well as many of its pleasures and conveniences--perhaps a
well-chosen library; the other has few of the comforts of life,
certainly no pleasures, enjoyments, nor books. And yet these