e caught, which led to his
fatal illness, had been occasioned by his leaving a warm upper coat,
which he had been accustomed to wear, to add to the bed covering of a
poor sick child, whom he had gone out one cold winter's day to visit.
Now, though it was impossible for any one to help dearly loving so
amiable and generous a character as Frank, his parents had found it
necessary gently to reprove his exceeding and indiscriminate generosity,
by pointing out to him that it was even wrong when it tended to injure
his own health, or to encroach on the rights of others. On such
occasions Mr. and Mrs. Sidney had explained to him that their income was
limited, so that their acts of benevolence must consist less in absolute
gifts of money (alas! some persons think there is no other way of doing
good), than in the bestowal of time and advice on the poor, and a degree
of judgment in the distribution of what they had to give, which would
make that little of its greatest service.

Charles had often been present at these conversations, and the allusions
Mrs. Sidney made to his fault of wresting phrases from their real
meaning, had reference to the evil manner in which he applied these
warnings to himself--so unnecessary for one of his character: warnings
which nothing but the indiscriminate profusion of Frank could have
tempted Mr. and Mrs. Sidney to utter. I mention these circumstances
because I am afraid we are all too much inclined to find excuses for our
faults; to do which, we generally apply maxims suitable only to the
opposite extreme of our own failings. And this was precisely the case
with the little selfish miser. The death of Mr. Sidney, which had
occurred suddenly, had followed quickly upon that of Frank; but, amid all
the widow's affliction, she never forgot the sorrow that Charles's
selfish disposition occasioned her. There was no longer even the shadow
of an excuse for parsimony, as the inheritance which would have been
divided between the two brothers would now devolve on the only son.
Charles knew this: he knew that he was provided with a sufficient fortune
to finish his education admirably, to send him to college, and start him
in a profession. But this made no difference in his disposition; he
continued to hoard money and books, and everything that came in his way,
as if each individual article were the last he ever could expect to have.

It so happened that Charles had several cousins, the children of a
you