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-powley man," continued I, "to trail about the country frequenting fairs; and dozing thro' the streets selling penny cakes to weans, out of a basket slung round the neck with a leather strap; and parliaments, and quality, brown and white, and snaps well peppered, and gingerbread nits, and so on.