wnright nonsense. Hearken to my words, Nanse, my dear. The happiest
man is he that can live quietly and soberly on the earnings of his
industry, pays his day and way, works not only to win the bread of life
for his wife and weans, but because he kens that idle-set is sinful;
keeps a pure heart towards God and man; and, caring not for the fashion
of this world, departs from it in the hope of going, through the merits
of his Redeemer, to a better."

"Ye are right, after a'," said Nanse, giving me a pat on the shouther;
and finding who was her master as well as spouse--"I'll wad it become me
to gang for to gie advice to my betters. Tak' your will of the business,
gudeman; and if ye dinna mak' him an admiral, just mak' him what ye
like."

Now is the time, thought I to myself, to carry my point, finding the
drappikie I had taken with Donald M'Naughton, in settling his account for
the green jacket, still working in my noddle, and giving me a power of
words equal to Mr Blouster, the Cameronian preacher,--now is the time,
for I still saw the unleavened pride of womankind wambling within her,
like a serpent that has got a knock on the pow, and been cast down but
not destroyed; so, taking a hearty snuff out of my box, and drawing it up
first one nostril, then another, syne dighting my finger and thumb on my
breek-knees, "What think ye," said I, "of a sweep? Were it not for
getting their faces blacked like savages, a sweep is not such a bad trade
after a'; though, to be sure, going down lums six stories high,
head-foremost, and landing upon the soles of their feet upon the hearth-
stone, like a kittlin, is no just so pleasant." Ye observe, it was only
to throw cold water on the unthrifty flame of a mother's pride that I
said this, and to pull down uppishness from its heathenish temple in the
heart, head-foremost. So I looked to her, to hear how she would come on.

"Haivers, haivers," said Nanse, birsing up like a cat before a colley.
"Sweep, say ye? I would sooner send him up wi' Lunardi to the man of the
moon; or see him banished, shackled neck and heels, to Botany Bay."

"A weel, a weel," answered I, "what notion have ye of the packman line?
We could fill his box with needles, and prins, and tape, and hanks of
worsted, and penny thimbles, at a small expense; and, putting a stick in
his hand, send him abroad into the wide world to push his fortune."

The wife looked dumfoundered. Howsoever--"Or breed him a rowley-powle