gainst the first cannon-ball I saw coming my way.'

'Oh, Kit, don't talk like that.'

'I would, indeed, mother, and unless you want to make me feel very
wretched and uncomfortable, you'll keep that bow on your bonnet, which
you'd more than half a mind to pull off last week. Can you suppose
there's any harm in looking as cheerful and being as cheerful as our
poor circumstances will permit? Do I see anything in the way I'm made,
which calls upon me to be a snivelling, solemn, whispering chap,
sneaking about as if I couldn't help it, and expressing myself in a
most unpleasant snuffle? on the contrary, don't I see every reason why
I shouldn't? just hear this! Ha ha ha! An't that as nat'ral as
walking, and as good for the health? Ha ha ha! An't that as nat'ral
as a sheep's bleating, or a pig's grunting, or a horse's neighing, or a
bird's singing? Ha ha ha! Isn't it, mother?'

There was something contagious in Kit's laugh, for his mother, who had
looked grave before, first subsided into a smile, and then fell to
joining in it heartily, which occasioned Kit to say that he knew it was
natural, and to laugh the more. Kit and his mother, laughing together
in a pretty loud key, woke the baby, who, finding that there was
something very jovial and agreeable in progress, was no sooner in its
mother's arms than it began to kick and laugh, most vigorously. This
new illustration of his argument so tickled Kit, that he fell backward
in his chair in a state of exhaustion, pointing at the baby and shaking
his sides till he rocked again. After recovering twice or thrice, and
as often relapsing, he wiped his eyes and said grace; and a very
cheerful meal their scanty supper was.

With more kisses, and hugs, and tears, than many young gentlemen who
start upon their travels, and leave well-stocked homes behind them,
would deem within the bounds of probability (if matter so low could be
herein set down), Kit left the house at an early hour next morning, and
set out to walk to Finchley; feeling a sufficient pride in his
appearance to have warranted his excommunication from Little Bethel
from that time forth, if he had ever been one of that mournful
congregation.

Lest anybody should feel a curiosity to know how Kit was clad, it may
be briefly remarked that he wore no livery, but was dressed in a coat
of pepper-and-salt with waistcoat of canary colour, and nether garments
of iron-grey; besides these glories, he shone in the lustr