paid
off another debt, thank heaven?"

"Whose?"

"Petron's. He believed me a rogue and treated me as such. I hope he
thinks differently now."

"I wish all men were as honest in their intentions as you are."

"So do I, Alice. The world would be a much better one than it is, I am
thinking."

"And yet, William," said his wife, "I sometimes think we do wrong to
sacrifice so much to get out of debt. Our children"--

"Alice," spoke up the tailor, quickly, "I would almost sell my body
into slavery to get free from debt. When I think of what I still owe, I
feel as if I would suffocate."

"I know how badly you feel about it, William; but your heart is honest,
and should not that reflection bear you up?"

"What is an honest heart without an honest hand, Alice?" replied the
tailor, bending still to his work.

"The honest heart is the main thing, William; God looks at that. Man
judges only of the action, but God sees the heart and its purposes."

"But what is the purpose without the act?"

"It is all that is required, where no ability to act is given. William,
God does not demand of any one impossibilities."

"Though man often does," said the tailor, bitterly.

There was a pause, broken, at length, by the wife, who said--"And have
you really determined to put John and Henry out to trades? They are so
young."

"I know they are, Alice; too young to leave home. But"--

The tailor's voice became unsteady; he broke off in the middle of the
sentence.

"Necessity requires it to be done," he said, recovering himself; "and
it is of no avail to give way to unmanly weakness. But for this old
debt, we might have been comfortable enough, and able to keep our
children around us until they were of a more fitting age to go from
under their parents' roof. Oh, what a curse is debt!"

"There is more yet to pay?"

"Yes, several hundreds of dollars; but if I fail as I have for a year
past, I will break down before I get through."

"Let us think of our family, William; they have the first claim upon
us. Those to whom money is owed are better off than we are; they stand
in no need of it."

"But is it not justly due, Alice?" inquired the tailor, in a rebuking
voice.

"No more justly due than is food, and raiment, and a _home_ to our
children," replied the tailor's wife, with more than her usual decision
of tone. "God has given us these children, and he will require an
account of the souls committed to our charge. Is not a huma