e
did not purpose to live in idleness and extravagance, for such a life
would have been equally incompatible with his habits and his principles.
He was fond of children, and as he had no sons, he determined to adopt
one of his relations. He had two nephews, and he invited both of them to
his house, that he might have an opportunity of judging of their
dispositions, and of the habits which they had acquired.

Hal and Benjamin, Mr. Gresham's nephews, were about ten years old; they
had been educated very differently. Hal was the son of the elder branch
of the family; his father was a gentleman, who spent rather more than he
could afford; and Hal, from the example of the servants in his father's
family, with whom he had passed the first years of his childhood,
learned to waste more of everything than he used. He had been told that
"gentlemen should be above being careful and saving"; and he had
unfortunately imbibed a notion that extravagance is the sign of a
generous, and economy of an avaricious disposition.

Benjamin, on the contrary, had been taught habits of care and foresight:
his father had but a very small fortune, and was anxious that his son
should early learn that economy insures independence, and sometimes puts
it in the power of those who are not very rich, to be very generous.

The morning after these two boys arrived at their uncle's, they were
eager to see all the rooms in the house. Mr. Gresham accompanied them,
and attended to their remarks, and exclamations.

"Oh! what an excellent motto!" exclaimed Ben, when he read the following
words which were written in large characters over the chimneypiece, in
his uncle's spacious kitchen:

WASTE NOT, WANT NOT

"Waste not, want not!" repeated his cousin Hal, in rather a contemptuous
tone; "I think it looks stingy to servants; and no gentleman's servants,
cooks especially, would like to have such a mean motto always staring
them in the face."

Ben, who was not so conversant as his cousin in the ways of cooks and
gentleman's servants, made no reply to these observations.

Mr. Gresham was called away while his nephews were looking at the other
rooms in the house. Some time afterwards, he heard their voices in the
hall.

"Boys," said he, "what are you doing there?"

"Nothing, Sir," said Hal; "you were called away from us, and we did not
know which way to go."

"And have you nothing to do?" said Mr. Gresham.

"No, Sir, nothing," answered Hal, in a