come here every Saturday night and say, 'I've been honest all the week,' why, I'll stand the same amount."

Mattie's eyes sparkled at this rise in life.

"I'll borrow a basket, and buy some inguns to-morrow. P'raps you buy inguns sometimes, and old—Mr. Wesden down-stairs, too. Yes, sir, it's the connexion that budges one up!" she said, with the gravity of an old woman.

"I see. I'll speak to Mr. Wesden about his custom, Mattie. You can go now."

"Thankee, sir."

She rose to her feet, went a few steps down-stairs, paused, and looked back.

"What is it, Mattie?"

"I hope the young gen'leman isn't a fretting much about his broach."

"Here, young gentleman," called the father, "do you hear that?"

Master Hinchford laughed from within.

"Oh, no!—I don't fret."

"P'raps some day I shall have saved up enuf to pay him back. That's a rum idea, isn't it, sir?"

"Not a bad one, Mattie. Think it over."

"Yes, sir."

Mattie departed, and Mr. Hinchford returned to the sitting-room. Master Hinchford, buried in books, was sitting at the centre table.

"Are you going at figures to-night?"

"Just for a little while, I think."

"You'll ruin your eyes—I've said so fifty times."

"Better have weak eyes than weak brains, sir."

"Not the general idea, lad."

After a while, and when Master Hinchford was scratching away with his pen, the father said—

"You don't say anything about Mattie."

"I think it was very kind of you," said the youth; "and I think—somehow—that Mattie will be grateful."

"Pooh! pooh!" remarked the father, "you'll never make a first-rate city man, if you believe in gratitude. Look at the world sternly, boy. Put not your trust in anything turning out the real and genuine article—work everything by figures."

Master Hinchford looked at his sire, as though he scarcely understood him.

"I must bring you up to understand human nature, Sid—what a bad article it is—plated with a material that soon wears off, if rubbed smartly. Human nature is everywhere the same, and if you be only on your guard, you may take advantage of it, instead of letting it take advantage of you. Now, this girl is a specimen, which, at my own expense, we will experimentalize upon. In that stray, my boy, you shall see the natural baseness of mankind—or girl-kind."

"Don't you think that she'll come again?"

"For the sixpence, to be sure! Every Saturday night, with a long story of how honest she has been all the week. Here we shall see a girl, who, by her own statement, and with a struggle, can keep honest now—note the effect of indiscriminate alms-giving."

"Of rewarding a girl for stealing my brooch, pa."

"Ah!—exactly. Some people who didn't understand me, would set me down for a weak-minded old fool. In studying human nature, one must act oddly with odd specimens. And this girl—who came to tell us she had not brought the brooch back—I am just a little—curious—concerning!"