his occasion his very dissimulation had
forsaken him. Even in my presence he immediately applied his hands to
his pockets, in order to relieve her; but guess his confusion when he
found he had already given away all the money he carried about him to
former objects. The misery painted in the woman's visage was not half
so strongly expressed as the agony in his. He continued to search for
some time, but to no purpose, till, at length recollecting himself,
with a face of ineffable good-nature, as he had no money, he put into
her hands his shilling's worth of matches.

_2._

As there appeared something reluctantly good in the character of my
companion, I must own it surprised me what could be his motives for
thus concealing virtues which others take such pains to display. I was
unable to repress my desire of knowing the history of a man who thus
seemed to act under continual restraint, and whose benevolence was
rather the effect of appetite than reason.

It was not, however, till after repeated solicitations he thought
proper to gratify my curiosity. "If you are fond," says he, "of
hearing _hair-breadth escapes_, my history must certainly please; for
I have been for twenty years upon the very verge of starving, without
ever being starved.

"My father, the younger son of a good family, was possessed of a small
living in the church. His education was above his fortune, and his
generosity greater than his education. Poor as he was, he had his
flatterers still poorer than himself; for every dinner he gave them,
they returned an equivalent in praise; and this was all he wanted. The
same ambition that actuates a monarch at the head of an army,
influenced my father at the head of his table; he told the story of
the ivy-tree, and that was laughed at; he repeated the jest of the two
scholars and one pair of breeches, and the company laughed at that;
but the story of Taffy in the sedan chair was sure to set the table in
a roar. Thus his pleasure increased in proportion to the pleasure he
gave; he loved all the world, and he fancied all the world loved him.

"As his fortune was but small, he lived up to the very extent of it;
he had no intentions of leaving his children money, for that was
dross; he was resolved they should have learning; for learning, he
used to observe, was better than silver or gold. For this purpose he
undertook to instruct us himself; and took as much pains to form our
morals, as to improve our understand