-it is worth a hundred
ninepences to see such a beaming face.

After all, dear reader, one need not be a "Rothschild," to make a
fellow creature glad. Happiness is a cheaper thing than we are apt to
think.

WALTER WILLET.

Did you ever live in a hotel? I dare say you may have, (some time or
other, when you have been on a journey.) Perhaps your _home_ is in a
hotel. I hope not; because a good, cozy, quiet house of one's own, away
from noise and bustle, is so much better for little children--and grown
people too.

Walter lived in a hotel, with his father and mother and two little
sisters. Walter was very tired of it. His mother never staid in the
nursery; she was always down in the drawing-room, talking to
finely-dressed ladies; and, when his father came home from the store,
he never played with his little boy, but went into the gentlemen's
room, to smoke cigars.

The nursery was very small, and Walter's two little sisters cried a
great deal--sometimes from pain, and sometimes because Betty, the
nurse, got cross and shook them roughly, and took no pains to amuse
them when their mother staid away such a long, long while. So, little
Walter didn't fancy staying in the nursery much, and as he was not
allowed to go into the drawing-room, for fear his shirt-collar might be
tumbled, or his jacket on awry, or his boots have a mud speck on them,
the poor child had nothing left to do but wander round the hall and
lobbies, and see the chambermaids sweep the rooms, and hear the waiters
swear at each other, and watch the stages and trunks and passengers
come and go.

When Walter wearied of this, he'd creep into the "bar-room," and watch
the clerk pour out brandy, and wine and whiskey for the gentlemen to
drink. Walter liked to see them drink it, because it made them laugh so
hard, and clap each other on the back, and tell such funny stories; and
then, sometimes, they would call to him and feed him with the sugar and
brandy in the bottom of the tumbler; and Walter thought it very sweet
and nice, and made up his mind that when _he_ grew to be a man, he'd
have just as much brandy as ever he could drink.

Walter's mamma didn't think, as she sat there in the drawing-room,
dressed like a French doll, that her little curly headed Walter was
learning how to be a drunkard; no, she was a careless young mamma, and
didn't think, (perhaps she didn't know,) how closely little children
must be watched, to make them grow good men an