that's the worst of winding cotton; so you won't come, won't you? then you must break, that's all. There, now we shall go on again. One, two, three, four: O, I shall have done this job in a minute.” MOTHER. So you have found your tongue again,

Marianne.

MARIANNE. O'yes, mamma, no fear of that.

MOTHER. Now then, perhaps, you can tell me what was the matter just now when you were groan. ing so dismally.

MARIANNE. O really, mamma, there was nothing the matter; only one is miserable sometimes, you know; I often am: but then I soon grow cheerful again; that is one comfort.

MOTHER. Stay; I think you have used the wrong word you mean that you soon get merry again. MARIANNE. Well, it's all the same.

MOTHER. All the same! O no, very different indeed. The most wicked and miserable persons in the world may sometimes be merry; but it is impossible they should ever be cheerful: cheerfulness you know implies an easy, contented, serene mind. Mirth is only excited by some temporary amusement; and this may happen when the heart is aching, and the conscience stinging all the time. A cheerful mind and a guilty conscience can never exist together. Now, although there is no objection to a little girl like you, being merry now and then, yet it is very requisite that you should not only learn to distinguish between words of such different meanings, but that now, while you are young, you should cultivate those habits and tempers with which

cheerfulness will grow; that you may feel the difference as well as know it. If this had been done already, Marianne, you would have escaped that fit of melancholy this afternoon, and many a one before it.

MARIANNE. As to that, I fancy every body is in a mopish mood now and then, when they are dull, and when it rains.

MOTHER. Really, Marianne, we should be badly off in this climate, if we must always be dull when it rains. To be sure, if every body was obliged to stand still at their windows, and watch the drops as they fall, it would be no wonder if it were so.

MARIANNE. Well, mamma, it was only because just then I had nothing else to do.

MOTHER. That, I grant you, is a reason-the best reason, Marianne, that you have yet given me for being miserable. But this was your own fault; there is no one, young or old, but may find something to do if they please.

MARIANNE. No, really; just then there was nothing in the world that I could think of to do, that I liked.

MOTHER. That you liked? O, that was it. Now then I believe we shall arrive at the true cause of this fit of melancholy; you were idle: now I perfectly understand what it was that made you say, "O dear, O dear," and gape and groan: yes, indeed, it is a miserable thing to be idle. Indolent people may often have a fit of mirth, or a good game of play, but their mirth is sure to subside into dulness, they can never know what it is to be cheerful.

MARIANNE. But indeed, mamma, I don't think it was being idle that made me miserable then; it was because I felt so miserable that I did not like to do any thing.

MOTHER. I think you mistake there: suppose now, when you first came in from play you had thought of winding this cotton for me; and suppose by a little effort you had overcome the inclination you felt to sit still, and had actually done it; do you think you would then have felt so dull and dismal as you did standing still for three-quarters of an hour at the window?

MARIANNE. No, because then I should not have had time to see the bad weather, and to think how dull it was.

MOTHER. So I thought: it is thus that regular employment keeps off those capricious fits of melancholy to which the indolent are always liable. When useful and industrious people are unhappy they can always tell you the reason; but the idle are very often so, when, as you said, nothing at all is the matter. MARIANNE. Well, I should very much like to be cheerful always.

MOTHER. It is a desirable thing, indeed, my dear! but then you must see that you lay a good founda tion for cheerfulness; and this can be formed only by habits of industry; by good tempers; in one word, by a peaceful conscience. While you are a child, the difference between high spirits and good spirits-between mirth and cheerfulness, is not so apparent but by-and-by, when you will no longer feel inclined to be merry, you must either be habi

tually cheerful or habitually dull. Cheerfulness differs essentially from mirth, in its being a lasting companion, one that does not forsake us even in old age. It endures through life; bears persons up under its calamities and crosses; and when genuine, shines brightest as we descend in the vale of years. "In laughter there is sorrow; and the end of mirth is often heaviness;" but christian cheerfulness has no such alloy.

XVIII.

"I CAN DO WITHOUT IT."

THIS is one of the best mottos in the world, or one of the worst, according to the meaning attached to it; which will appear from the conduct of two young people who were acquainted with each other; each of whom happened to take the above sentence into frequent use. Eliza disliked and ridiculed the manner in which it was applied by Ruth: and Ruth could not but disapprove of the way in which it was used by Eliza. The purpose to which Ruth appropriated the words, and the way in which she came to adopt them as her motto, shall be explained in the present paper.

Her parents were persons of superior education, but their income was limited and narrow; so that they were compelled by their circumstances, as well as inclined by their good sense, to study economy.

Ruth entered into the prudent and sensible views of her parents at an early age; and her general conduct gave them so much satisfaction, that on the day she was fourteen, her mother informed her that from that time she should be intrusted with the purchase and entire management of her own dress; and that her annual allowance would be increased accordingly. The sum now allotted to her was such as her mother considered sufficient, with prudence and management, to meet all her real wants and reasonable wishes.

When Ruth received her first quarterage, the possession of a sum of money so much larger than she had ever been mistress of before, made her feel a little giddy. However, she deposited it safely in her desk, resolving not to touch it till it was really wanted. Economy, her mother told her, did not consist in grudging to supply our wants, but in restraining the desire for superfluities. Not many days after she had entered upon this new responsibility, Ruth accompanied her father and mother to a neighbouring market town, where they frequently went to make purchases, as they lived in the country. She had often been with them on former occasions; but it was with sensations entirely new that she now walked through the busy streets of this town, and passed its long rows of well-furnished shops. Heretofore she had surveyed the various tempting articles they exhibited merely as an amusing spectacle: and with no more idea of possessing any of them than one has of purchasing the curiosities of a museum. But now circumstances were altered. Here were things, and pretty things too, that she might have if