us by our tickets to purchase things at reduced prices, went into our ‘little box.’  If my children got a penny at school for a reward to buy gingerbread, they brought it home, they said, to help me to buy the boat—­for they would have no gingerbread till father had got his boat again.  Thus, from time to time, our little store insensibly increased, till one pound only was wanting of the five, when the following accident happened.

“Coming home one evening from my work, I saw in the road a small pocketbook:  on opening it, I found a bank-note of ten pounds, which plainly enough belonged to my master, for his name was upon it, and I had also seen him passing that way in the evening:  it being too late, however, to return to the house, I went on my way.  When I told my family of the incident, the little ones were thrown into a transport of joy.

“‘My dears,’ said I, ‘what is the matter?’

“‘Oh, father, the BOAT! the BOAT! we may now have two or three boats!’

“I checked them by my looks, and asked them if they recollected whose money that was.  They said, ‘Yours, as you found it.’  I reminded them that I was not the real owner, and bade them think how they would all feel, supposing a stranger was to take our box of money, if I should happen to drop it on the day I went to buy back the boat.

“This thought had the effect on their young minds that I desired; they were silent and pale with the representation of such a disaster, and I begged it might be a lesson to them never to forget the golden rule of ‘doing as they would wish others to do by them;’ for by attention to this certain guide, no one would ever do wrong to another.  I also took this opportunity to explain to them, that the possession of the boat by dishonest means would never answer, since we could not expect the blessing of God upon bad deeds.”

[Illustration]

“To go on with my story:  The next morning I put the pocketbook into my bosom, and went to my work, intending, as soon as the family rose, to give it to my master; but what were my feelings when, on searching in my bosom, it was nowhere to be found!  I hasted back along the road by which I came, and looked diligently all the way, but in vain; there was no trace of any such thing.  I would not return into my cottage, because I wished to save my family the pain I felt; and in the hope of still recovering the book, I went to my work, following another path which I recollected I had also gone by.  On my return to the garden-gate, I was accosted by the gardener, who, in a threatening tone, told me I was suspected; that our master had lost a pocketbook, describing what I had found, and that I being the only man absent from the garden at the hour of work, the rest of the men also denying that they had seen any such thing, there was every reason to conclude that I must have got it.