right, I think; (takes it.) Moreover, I shall be out a
good while to day; (drinks;) perhaps I may not come home to dinner;
(drinks;) bring my dinner then to the timber-yard.

_Fred._ With all my heart.

_Clar._ (looking at her.) I do not think you will do it with
reluctance.

_Fred._ By no means. I will do it with pleasure. But my brother does
not altogether relish it; and, in those little matters, I think we
might please him.

_Clar._ (rises displeased.) I say, no! God bless him in the high
station he fills! But that cannot be, if ever he should forget what he
has been. And as his memory, in that respect, is daily impaired, it is
necessary therefore to put him the oftener in mind of it.

_Fred._ Yet I think--

_Clar._ He is a Deputy,--let him thank God for it! I am a carpenter,
thank heaven! You are my good dutiful daughter, that takes care of me,
nurses me, and gives me great satisfaction; and for that, I return
heaven threefold thanks from the bottom of my heart. (Fred. embraces
him.) Yes, you are very good! I only find fault with two things; in
every other respect you are a nice girl, quite the girl after my own
heart. First, you read too much, and then--

_Fred._ Dear father, do not I tell you a number of entertaining and
instructive things out of the books I read? Has my reading formed me
otherwise than you would have me?

_Clar._ Not as yet, if the evil do not come limping at the end! Good
God!--Books indeed impart information; that I must own. But since those
deep learned works have carried thy brother so high, and, at the same
time, so far from us; I think, when I behold the large heap of books in
his study, I think I see a finger-post that directs from the heart.

_Fred._ Your pursuits and his are different, father.

_Clar._ In our respective lines, I grant it. If his heart were not a
stranger to us from other motives, he would, when his work is done,
come and say,--Father! you build houses, and I build laws, that the
people may live secure in those houses. I have been successful to day
in my work, if God should prosper it; and how have you succeeded? Then
I would talk to him of my good old timber, and complain of the young
green wood; he might then tell me, how pleased he is with the old
colleagues that share his toils, or complain of the young green
ones.--Thus we might exchange toil and pleasure, complaint and
consolation; spend a comfortable hour together, and derive mutual
advantage from eac