matters treated of in the last fifteen chapters were yet in
progress, was, as the reader may suppose, gradually
familiarising himself more and more with Mr. and Mrs.
Garland, Mr. Abel, the pony, and Barbara, and gradually
coming to consider them one and all as his particular
private friends, and Abel Cottage, Finchley, as his own
proper home.

Stay--the words are written, and may go, but if they
convey any notion that Kit, in the plentiful board and com-
fortable lodging of his new abode, began to think slight-
ingly of the poor fare and furniture of his old dwelling,
they do their office badly and commit injustice. Who so
mindful of those he left at home--albeit they were but a
mother and two young babies--as Kit? What boastful
father in the fulness of his heart ever related such wonders
of his infant prodigy, as Kit never wearied of telling Bar-
bara in the evening time, concerning little Jacob? Was
there ever such a mother as Kit's mother, on her son's
showing; or was there ever such comfort in poverty as in
the poverty of Kit's family, if any correct judgment might
be arrived at, from his own glowing account!

And let us linger in this place for an instant to remark
that if ever household affections and loves are graceful
things, they are graceful in the poor. The ties that bind
the wealthy and the proud to home may be forged on earth,
but those which link the poor man to his humble hearth are
of the true metal and bear the stamp of Heaven. The man
of high descent may love the halls and lands of his inherit-
ance as a part of himself, as trophies of his birth and
power; his associations with them are associations of pride
and wealth and triumph; the poor man's attachment to the
tenements he holds, which strangers have held before, and
may to-morrow occupy again, has a worthier root, struck
deep into a purer soil. His household gods are of flesh and
blood, with no alloy of silver, gold, or precious stone; he
has no property but in the affections of his own heart; and
when they endear bare floors and walls, despite of rags and
toil and scanty meals, that man has his love of home from
God, and his rude hut becomes a solemn place.

Oh! if those who rule the destinies of nations would but
remember this--if they would but think how hard it is for
the very poor to have engendered in their hearts that love
of home from which all domestic virtues spring, when they
live in dense and squalid masses where social decency is

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