your business. There's those boots in the
corner now. They belong to your papa. And they come next. Don't you
think it's an honour to keep the feet of such a good man dry and warm as
he goes about from morning to night comforting people? Don't you think
it's an honour to mend boots for _him_, even if they should be dirty?"

"Oh, yes--for _papa_!" said Willie, as if his papa must be an exception
to any rule.

"Well," resumed Hector, "look at these great lace-boots. I shall have to
fill the soles of them full of hobnails presently. They belong to the
best ploughman in the parish--John Turnbull. Don't you think it's an
honour to mend boots for a man who makes the best bed for the corn to
die in?"

"I thought it was to grow in," said Willie.

"All the same," returned Hector. "When it dies it grows--and not till
then, as you will read in the New Testament. Isn't it an honour, I say,
to mend boots for John Turnbull?"

"Oh, yes--for John Turnbull! I know John," said Willie, as if it made
any difference to his merit whether Willie knew him or not!

"And there," Hector went on, "lies a pair of slippers that want
patching. They belong to William Webster, the weaver, round the corner.
They're very much down at heel too. But isn't it an honour to patch or
set up slippers for a man who keeps his neighbours in fine linen all the
days of their lives?"

"Yes, yes. I know William. It must be nice to do anything for William
Webster."

"Suppose you didn't know him, would that make any difference?"

"No," said Willie, after thinking a little. "Other people would know him
if I didn't."

"Yes, and if nobody knew him, God would know him; and anybody God has
thought worth making, it's an honour to do anything for. Believe me,
Willie, to have to keep people's feet dry and warm is a very important
appointment."

"Your own shoes aren't very good, Hector," said Willie, who had been
casting glances from time to time at his companion's feet, which were
shod in a manner that, to say the least of it, would have prejudiced no
one in favour of his handiwork. "Isn't it an honour to make shoes for
yourself Hector?"

"There can't be much honour in doing anything for yourself," replied
Hector, "so far as I can see. I confess my shoes are hardly decent, but
then I can make myself a pair at any time; and indeed I've been thinking
I would for the last three months, as soon as a slack time came; but
I've been far too busy as yet, and, as I don't