On the next morning, as we have said, Mr. Alexander entered his library, to take another look at his purchase.  He did not feel very happy.  Many thousands of dollars had he spent in order to secure the means of self-gratification; but the end was not yet gained.

A glance at the new picture sufficed, and then Mr. Alexander turned from it with an involuntary sigh.  Was it to look at other pictures?  No.  He crossed his hands behind him, bent his eyes upon the floor, and for the period of half an hour, walked slowly backwards and forwards in his library.  There was a pressure on his feelings, he knew not why; a sense of disappointment and dissatisfaction.

No purpose was in the mind of Mr. Alexander when he turned from his library, and, drawing on his overcoat, passed forth to the street.  It was a bleak winter morning, and the muffled pedestrians hurried shivering on their way.

“Oh!  I wish I had a dollar.”

These words, in the voice of a child, and spoken with impressive earnestness, fell suddenly upon the ears of Mr. Alexander, as he moved along the pavement.  Something in the tone reached the old man’s feelings, and he partly turned himself to look at the speaker.  She was a little girl, not over eleven years of age, and in company with a lad some year or two older.  Both were coarsely clad.

“What would you do with a dollar, sis?” replied the boy.

“I’d buy brother William a pair of nice woollen gloves, and a comforter, and a pair of rubber shoes.  That’s what I’d do with it.  He has to go away, so early, in the cold, every morning; and he’s ’most perished, I know, sometimes.  Last night his feet were soaking with wet.  His shoes are not good; and mother says she hasn’t money to buy him a new pair just now.  Oh, I wish I had a dollar!”

Instinctively Mr. Alexander’s hand was in his pocket, and, a moment after, a round, bright silver dollar glittered in that of the girl.

But little farther did Mr. Alexander extend his walk.  As if by magic, the hue of his feelings had changed.  The pressure on his heart was gone, and its fuller pulses sent the blood bounding and frolicking along every expanding artery.  He thought not of pictures nor possessions.  All else was obscured by the bright face of the child, as she lifted to his her innocent eyes, brimming with grateful tears.

One dollar spent unselfishly, brought more real pleasure than thousands parted with in the pursuit of merely selfish gratification.  And the pleasure did not fade with the hour, nor the day.  That one truly benevolent act, impulsive as it had been, touched a sealed spring of enjoyment, and the waters that gushed instantly forth continued to flow unceasingly.

Homeward the old man returned, and again he entered his library.  Choice works of art were all around him, purchased as a means of enjoyment.

They had cost thousands,—­yet did they not afford him a tithe of the pleasure he had secured by the expenditure of a single dollar.  He could turn from them with a feeling of satiety; not so from the image of the happy child whose earnestly expressed wish he had gratified.