't got a very bad temper, have I, Bill?"

"I think you've got a regular downright good 'un, Betsey," said her
brother, looking at her admiringly.

"Well, Bill, do you know if I was to go there much, Mrs Thorne would
make me a regular spitfire. She gives me the hot creeps with her
condescending, high-and-mighty ways. She's come down in the world.
Well, suppose she has. So's thousands more, but they don't--they
don't--"

"Howl," said Mr William Forth Burge, "that's it; they don't howl. Lor
a mussy me, what difference do it make? Do you know, Betsey, I believe
I was just as happy when I first started business on my own account; and
I'm sure I thought a deal more of my first new cart, with brass boxes
and patent axles, painted chocklit--it was picked out with yallar--than
I did of our new carriage, here, and pair. Ah! and my first mare, as I
only give fifteen pun for, could get over the ground better than either
of these for which I give two hundred because they was such a match."

"There, now, you're beginning to grumble again, Bill, and I won't have
it. You've grown to be a rich man, all out of your own cleverness, and
you ought to be very proud of of it; and if you're not, I am."

"But, you see, Betsey, I ain't so happy as I thought I should be."

"Then you ought to be, seeing how happy you can make other folks; and
oh, Bill, by-the-way, them Potts's are in trouble."

"Well, that ain't nothing new. Potts always is in trouble. He ought to
have been christened Beer Potts or Pewter Potts, though they don't know
what a pewter pot is down in this part of the world."

"That's better, Bill; now you're beginning to joke," said little Miss
Burge, smiling, "But you'll do something for the Potts's?"

"I'll never do nothing for anybody else again in the place," said Mr
William Forth Burge; "a set of ungrateful beggars. What's the matter
with Potts? Been tipsy again?"

"I'm afraid he has, Bill; but that isn't it. They've got the fever
there; that big, saucy girl, Feelier, is down with it and the poor
mother wants money badly."

"Why don't she work for it, then?"

"Oh, she do, Bill; she's the most hard-working woman in the place."

Mr William Forth Burge's hand went into his pocket, and he brought out
five pounds, to place them in his sister's hand.

"I wouldn't give it her all at once, dear," he said; "but a pound at a
time like. It makes it do more good."

Little Miss Burge had the tears in her eyes as