n a large and even national scale. The
Degs threatened, therefore, to become a most formidable clan in the lower
purlieus of Stockington, but luckily there is so much virtue even in
evils, that one, not rarely, cures another. War, the great evil, cleared
the town of Degs.

Fond of idleness, of indulgence, of money easily got, and as easily
spent, the Degs were rapidly drained off by recruiting parties during the
last war. The young men enlisted, and were marched away; the young women
married soldiers that were quartered in the town from time to time, and
marched away with them. There were, eventually, none of the once numerous
Degs left except a few old people, whom death was sure to draft off at
no distant period with his regiment of the line which has no end. Parish
overseers, magistrates, and master manufacturers, felicitated themselves
at this unhoped-for deliverance from the ancient family of the Degs.

But one cold, clear, winter evening, the east wind piping its sharp
sibilant ditty in the bare shorn hedges, and poking its sharp fingers
into the sides of well broad-clothed men by the way of passing jest, Mr.
Spires, a great manufacturer of Stockington, driving in his gig some
seven miles from the town, passed a poor woman with a stout child on
her back. The large ruddy-looking man in the prime of life, and in the
great coat and thick worsted gloves of a wealthy traveler, cast a glance
at the wretched creature trudging heavily on, expecting a pitiful appeal
to his sensibilities, and thinking it a bore to have to pull off a glove
and dive into his pocket for a copper; but to his surprise there was no
demand, only a low courtesy, and the glimpse of a face of singular
honesty of expression, and of excessive weariness.

Spires was a man of warm feelings; he looked earnestly at the woman, and
Thought he had never seen such a picture of fatigue in his life. He
pulled up and said,

"You seem very tired, my good woman."

"Awfully tired, sir."

"And are you going far to-night?"

"To Great Stockington, sir, if God give me strength."

"To Stockington!" exclaimed Mr. Spires. "Why, you seem ready to drop.
You'll never reach it. You'd better stop at the next village."

"Ay, sir, it's easy stopping, for those that have money."

"And you've none, eh?"

"As God lives, sir, I've a sixpence, and that's all."

Mr. Spires put his hand in his pocket, and held out to her, the next
instant, half-a-crown.

"There stop, poo