“Good-night!” And Jack turned off at the lane-end towards his humble and dirty cottage in Main’s Court.  I might introduce you to his home,—­but “home” it could scarcely be called.  It was full of squalor and untidiness, confusion and dirty children, where a slattern-looking woman was scolding.  Ransom’s cottage, On the contrary, was a home.  It was snug, trig, and neat; the hearthstone was fresh sanded; the wife, though her hands were full of work, was clean and tidy; and her husband, his day’s work over, could sit down with his children about him, in peace and comfort.

The chief secret was now revealed.  Ransom’s secret, about the penny, was a very good one, so far as it went.  But he had not really told the whole truth.  He could not venture to tell his less fortunate comrade that the root of all domestic prosperity, the mainstay of all domestic comfort, is the wife; and Ransom’s wife was all that a working man could desire.  There can be no thrift, nor economy, nor comfort at home, unless the wife helps;—­and a working man’s wife, more than any other man’s; for she is wife, Housekeeper, nurse, and servant, all in one.  If she be thriftless, putting money into her hands is like pouring water through a sieve.  Let her be frugal, and she will make her home a place of comfort, and she will also make her husband’s life happy,—­if she do not lay the foundation of his prosperity and fortune.

One would scarcely expect that for a penny a day it would be possible to obtain anything valuable.  And yet it may be easily shown how much a penny a day, carefully expended, might do towards securing a man’s independence, and providing his wife and family against the future pressure of poverty and want.

Take up a prospectus and tables of a Provident Society, intended for the use of those classes who have a penny a day to spend,—­that is, nearly all the working classes of the country.  It is not necessary to specify any particular society, because the best all proceed upon the same data,—­the results of extensive observations and experience of health and sickness;—­and their tables of rates, certified by public actuaries, are very nearly the same.  Now, looking at the tables of these Life and Sickness Assurance Societies, let us see what a penny a day can do.

1.  For a penny a day, a man or woman of twenty-six years of age may secure the sum of ten shillings a week payable during the time of sickness, for the whole of life.

2.  For a penny a day (payments ceasing at sixty years of age), a man or woman of thirty-one years of age may secure the sum of L50 payable at death, whenever that event may happen, even though it should be during the week or the month after the assurance has been effected.

3.  For a penny a day, a young man or woman of fifteen may secure a sum of L100, the payment of the penny a day continuing during the whole of life, but the L100 being payable whenever death may occur.