saying, "they are only a
little behind;" but a little too late is much too late, and a miss is as
good as a mile. My neighbor Sykes covered up his well after his child
was drowned in it, and was very busy down at the Old Farm bringing up
buckets of water after every stick of the house had been burned; one of
these days, he'll be for making his will when he can't hold a pen, and
he'll be trying to repent of his sins when his senses are going.

FAULTS.

He who boasts of being perfect is perfect in folly. I have been a good
deal up and down in the world, and I never did see either a perfect
horse or a perfect man, and I never shall till two Sundays come
together. You can not get white flour out of a coal sack, nor perfection
out of human nature; he who looks for it had better look for sugar in
the sea. The old saying is, "Lifeless, faultless;" of dead men we should
say nothing but good; but as for the living, they are all tarred more or
less with the black brush, and half an eye can see it. Every head has a
soft place in it, and every heart has its black drop. Every rose has its
prickles, and every day its night. Even the sun shows spots, and the
skies are darkened with clouds. Nobody is so wise but he has folly
enough to stock a stall at Vanity Fair. Where I could not see the fool's
cap, I have nevertheless heard the bells jingle. As there is no sunshine
without some shadows, so is all human good mixed up with more or less of
evil; even poor-law guardians have their little failings, and parish
beadles are not wholly of heavenly nature. The best wine has its lees.
All men's faults are not written on their foreheads, and it's quite as
well they are not, or hats would need very wide brims; yet as sure as
eggs are eggs, faults of some sort nestle in every bosom. There's no
telling when a man's sins may show themselves, for hares pop out of the
ditch just when you are not looking for them. A horse that is weak in
the legs may not stumble for a mile or two, but it is in him, and the
driver had better hold him up well. The tabby cat is not lapping milk
just now, but leave the dairy door open, and see if she is not as bad a
thief as the kitten. There's fire in the flint, cool as it looks: wait
till the steel gets a knock at it, and you will see. Every body can read
that riddle, but it is not every body that will remember to keep his
gunpowder out of the way of the candle.

If we would always recollect that we live among me