how much she
cared for their good will, if she did hear what they thought of her.
But this I know, that I could not bear to have such a character. I
would rather give away half of all I am worth than to give any reason
to people to think I was mean and selfish. How I should dislike to
have folks say to themselves, and perhaps to others, when they meet me
in the streets, "There goes a selfish man--a man who is about as
good as people will average, in other respects, but who is as small as
the little end of nothing, in his dealings." I think I would rather
live on a crust of dry bread than to get money by being close, and
small, and mean, and selfish.

[Illustration: MY PRETTY KITTEN.]

Caroline had a kitten given her, by her uncle, when she had grown up
to be quite a large girl. It was a beautiful creature. I think they
called it a Maltese kitten. Nothing of the kind had been seen in the
place where Caroline lived, before Tommy, as she called her new pet,
was brought there. Well, of course she told all the little folks what
a fine present her uncle had made to her, and they were invited to
come over and see the "dear little creature." She talked about her
kitten as if it were one of the wonders of the world, and as if she
thought she was a young queen, with the wealth of Cleopatra or
Elizabeth, and that half the inhabitants of the globe would certainly
come and bow before her and her wonderful kitten.

When she met her young friends, she talked of nothing hardly but "my
pretty Maltese kitten."

That is the way with selfish folks. They think and talk a great deal
of what concerns _them_, and you seldom hear them praise anything that
belongs to their neighbors.

I shall never forget--if you will allow me to go a step or two out of
my way for an illustration--I shall never forget how, when I was a
little school-boy, Mother Budd, a rather selfish old lady, used to
call us into her kitchen, to see the nice honey she had been taking
out of her bee-hives. "Isn't that fine?" she would ask; "eh, isn't
that fine honey, boys?" Of course it was fine, and we said so. "Well,
you can go now," she would say, after that. As for letting us taste of
her fine honey, that she never thought of doing.

I don't know but we should almost have served her right, if we had
done something as a good old minister I have heard of, once did in
very similar circumstances. He was making a call upon one of the
ladies of his parish--upon Aunt Katy,