“Alice,” spoke up the tailor, quickly, “I would almost sell my body into slavery to get free from debt.  When I think of what I still owe, I feel as if I would suffocate.”

“I know how badly you feel about it, William; but your heart is honest, and should not that reflection bear you up?”

“What is an honest heart without an honest hand, Alice?” replied the tailor, bending still to his work.

“The honest heart is the main thing, William; God looks at that.  Man judges only of the action, but God sees the heart and its purposes.”

“But what is the purpose without the act?”

“It is all that is required, where no ability to act is given.  William, God does not demand of any one impossibilities.”

“Though man often does,” said the tailor, bitterly.

There was a pause, broken, at length, by the wife, who said—­“And have you really determined to put John and Henry out to trades?  They are so young.”

“I know they are, Alice; too young to leave home.  But”—­

The tailor’s voice became unsteady; he broke off in the middle of the sentence.

“Necessity requires it to be done,” he said, recovering himself; “and it is of no avail to give way to unmanly weakness.  But for this old debt, we might have been comfortable enough, and able to keep our children around us until they were of a more fitting age to go from under their parents’ roof.  Oh, what a curse is debt!”

“There is more yet to pay?”

“Yes, several hundreds of dollars; but if I fail as I have for a year past, I will break down before I get through.”

“Let us think of our family, William; they have the first claim upon us.  Those to whom money is owed are better off than we are; they stand in no need of it.”

“But is it not justly due, Alice?” inquired the tailor, in a rebuking voice.

“No more justly due than is food, and raiment, and a home to our children,” replied the tailor’s wife, with more than her usual decision of tone.  “God has given us these children, and he will require an account of the souls committed to our charge.  Is not a human soul of more importance than dollars?  A few years, and it will be out of our power to do our children good; they will grow up, and bear for ever the marks of neglect and wrong.”

“Alice!  Alice! for heaven’s sake, do not talk in this way!” exclaimed the tailor, much disturbed.

“William,” said the wife, “I am a mother, and a mother’s heart can feel right; nature tells me that it is wrong for us to thrust out our children before they are old enough to go into the world.  Let us keep them home longer.”

“We cannot, and pay off this debt.”

“Then let the debt go unpaid for the present.  Those to whom it is owed can receive no harm from waiting; but our children will”—­

Just then a man brought in a letter, and, handing it to the tailor, withdrew.  On breaking the seal, Mr. Moale found that it contained fifty dollars, and read as follows:—­