ible as soon as these innocent people appeared upon
the scene. I would not readily trust the travelling merchant with any
extravagant sum of money, but I am sure his heart was in the right
place.

In this mixed world, if you can find one or two sensible places in a
man; above all, if you should find a whole family living together on
such pleasant terms, you may surely be satisfied, and take the rest for
granted; or, what is a great deal better, boldly make up your mind that
you can do perfectly well without the rest, and that ten thousand bad
traits cannot make a single good one any the less good.

*****

His was, indeed, a good influence in life while he was still among us;
he had a fresh laugh; it did you good to see him; and, however sad he
may have been at heart, he always bore a bold and cheerful countenance
and took fortune's worst as it were the showers of spring.

*****

Pleasures are more beneficial than duties because, like the quality
of mercy, they are not strained, and they are twice blest. There
must always be two in a kiss, and there may be a score in a jest; but
wherever there is an element of sacrifice, the favour is conferred with
pain, and, among generous people, received with confusion.

There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy. By
being happy, we sow anonymous benefits upon the world, which remain
unknown even to ourselves, or when they are disclosed, surprise nobody
so much as the benefactor.

*****

A happy man or woman is a better thing to find than a five-pound note.
He or she is a radiating focus of goodwill; and their entrance into
a room is as though another candle had been lighted. We need not care
whether they could prove the forty-seventh proposition; they do a better
thing than that, they practically demonstrate the great Theorem of the
Liveableness of Life.

*****

Mme. Bazin came out after a while; she was tired with her day's work,
I suppose; and she nestled up to her husband and laid her head upon
his breast. He had his arm about her and kept gently patting her on the
shoulder. I think Bazin was right, and he was really married. Of how few
people can the same be said!

Little did the Bazins know how much they served us. We were charged for
candles, for food and drink, and for the beds we slept in. But there was
nothing in the bill for the husband's pleasant talk; nor for the
pretty spectacle of their married life. And there was yet another item