red
up the house a little.

Acting upon this advice, I asked Mr M'Swat to put a paling fence round
the house, as it was useless trying to keep the house respectable while
the fowls and pigs ran in every time the door was opened.--

He was inclined to look with favour upon this proposition, but his wife
sat upon it determinedly-said the fowls would lose the scraps. "Would it
not be possible to throw them over the fence to the fowls?" I asked; but
this would cause too much waste, she considered.

Next I suggested that the piano should be tuned, but they were united in
their disapproval of such a fearful extravagance. "The peeany makes a
good nise. What ails it?"

Then I suggested that the children should he kept tidier, for which I was
insulted by their father. I wanted them to be dressed up like swells, and
if he did that he would soon be a pauper like my father. This I found was
the sentiment of the whole family regarding me. I was only the daughter
of old hard-up Melvyn, consequently I had little weight with the
children, which made things very hard for me as a teacher.

One day at lunch I asked my mistress if she would like the children to be
instructed in table-manners. "Certainly," her husband replied, so I
commenced.

"Jimmy, you must never put your knife in your mouth."

"Pa does at any rate," replied Jimmy.

"Yes," said pa; "and I'm a richer man today than them as didn't do it."

"Liza, do not put a whole slice of bread to your mouth like that, and
cram so. Cut it into small pieces."

"Ma doesn't," returned Liza.

"Ye'll have yer work cut out with 'em," laughed Mrs M'Swat, who did not
know how to correct her family herself, and was too ignorant to uphold my
authority.

That was my only attempt at teaching manners there. In the face of such
odds it was a bootless task, and as there were not enough knives and
forks to go round, I could not inculcate the correct method of handling
those implements.

Mrs M'Swat had but one boiler in which to do all her cooking, and one
small tub for the washing, and there was seldom anything to cat but bread
and beef; and this was not because they were poor, but because they did
not know, or want to know, any better.

Their idea of religion, pleasure, manners, breeding, respectability,
love, and everything of that ilk, was the possession of money, and their
one idea of accumulating wealth was by hard sordid dragging and grinding.

A man who rises from indigence to