_Tommy._--That is true, indeed; and I declare Chares was a very good and
sensible man. Had it not been for him, these brave inhabitants of
Lebanon must have been enslaved. I now plainly perceive that a man may
be of much more consequence by improving his mind in various kinds of
knowledge, even though he is poor, than by all the finery and
magnificence he can acquire. I wish, with all my heart, that Mr Barlow
had been so good as to read this story to the young gentlemen and ladies
that were lately here; I think it would have made a great impression
upon their minds, and would have prevented their feeling so much
contempt for poor Harry, who is better and wiser than them all, though
he does not powder his hair or dress so genteelly.

"Tommy," said Mr Merton, with a kind of contemptuous smile, "why should
you believe that the hearing of a single story would change the
characters of all your late friends, when neither the good instructions
you have been so long receiving from Mr Barlow, nor the intimacy you
have had with Harry, were sufficient to restrain your impetuous temper,
or prevent you from treating him in the shameful manner you have done?"

Tommy appeared very much abashed with his father's rebuke. He hung down
his head in silence a considerable time; at length he faintly said,
"Oh, sir, I have indeed acted very ill; I have rendered myself unworthy
the affection of all my best friends; but do not, pray do not give me up
entirely. You shall see how I will behave for the future; and if ever I
am guilty of the same faults again, I consent that you shall abandon me
for ever." Saying this, he silently stole out of the room, as if intent
upon some extraordinary resolution. His father observed his motions, and
smiling, said to Mr Barlow, "What can this portend? This boy is
changeable as a weathercock; every blast whirls him round and round upon
his centre, nor will he ever fix, I fear, in any direction." "At least,"
replied Mr Barlow, "you have the greatest reason to rejoice in his
present impressions, which are good and estimable; and I fear it is the
lot of most human beings to exhaust almost every species of error before
they fix in truth and virtue."

Tommy now entered the room, but with a remarkable change in his dress
and manner. He had combed the powder out of his hair, and demolished the
elegance of his curls; he had divested his dress of every appearance of
finery; and even his massy and ponderous buckles, so