ays thought so degrading to enter a
workhouse, that the industrious labourer would endure any and every
privation rather than live there. An honest hard-working man must be
sorely driven indeed, to seek such a shelter in his distress."

"That seems strange," I observed. "Why should he object to receive what
he so much stands in need of?"

"When he thus comes upon the funds of the parish," answered my mother,
"he becomes what is called a pauper, and among the English peasantry of
the better sort, there is the greatest possible aversion to be ranked
with this degraded class. Consequently, the inmates of the workhouses
are either those whose infirmities prevent their earning a subsistence,
or the idle and the dissolute, who feel none of the honest prejudices of
self-dependence, and care only to live from day to day on the coarse and
meagre fare afforded them by the charity of their wealthier and more
industrious fellow-creatures.

"The case of this poor boy I thought very pitiable. I found out that
his name was Heinrich Reichardt. He could speak no language but his own
and therefore his wants remained unknown, and his feelings unregarded.
He had been brought up with a certain sense of comfort and decency,
which was cruelly outraged by the position in which he found himself
placed by the sudden death of his parents. I observed that he was often
in tears; and his fair features and light hair contrasted remarkably
with the squalid faces and matted locks of his companions. His
wretchedness never failed to make a deep impression on me.

"I brought him little presents, and strove to express my sympathy for
his sufferings. He seemed, at first, more surprised than grateful; but
I shortly discovered that my attentions gave him unusual pleasure, and
he looked upon my visits as his only solace and gratification.

"Even at this period, I exercised considerable influence over my father,
and I managed to interest him in the case of the poor foreign boy to
such an extent, that he was induced to take him out of the workhouse,
and find him a home under his own roof. He was at first reluctant to
burthen himself with the bringing up of a child, who, from his foreign
language and habits, could be of little use to him in his avocations;
but I promised to teach him English, and all other learning of which he
stood most in need, and assured my father, that in a prodigious short
time I would make him a much abler assistant than he wa