“It is _so_ sweet, and pure, and holy,” said I. The mother’s lip quivered; wiping away a tear with her apron, she said, in a choking voice: “Ah, it is little the likes of you, ma’am, know how hard it is for us to get the honest bread!” God be thanked, thought I, that there is one who “judgeth _not_ as man judgeth;” who holdeth evenly the scales of justice; who weigheth against our sins the _whirlpool_ of our temptations, who forgetteth never the countless struggles for the victory, ere the desponding, weary heart shuts out the light of Heaven. MRS. ZEBEDEE SMITH’S PHILOSOPHY. Dear me! how expensive it is to be poor. Every time I go out, my best bib and tucker has to go on. If Zebedee were worth a cool million, I might wear a coal-hod on my head, if I chose, with perfect impunity. There was that old nabob’s wife at the lecture, the other night, in a dress that might have been made for Noah’s great grandmother. She can afford it! Now, if it rains knives and forks, I must sport a ten dollar hat, a forty dollar dress, and a hundred dollar shawl. If I go to a concert, I must take the highest priced seat, and ride there and back, just to let “Tom, Dick and Harry” see that I can afford it. Then, we must hire the most expensive pew in the broad-aisle of a tip-top church, and give orders to the sexton not to admit any strangers into it who look snobbish. Then my little children, Napoleon Bonaparte and Donna Maria Smith, can’t go to a public school, because, you know, we shouldn’t have to pay anything. Then, if I go shopping, to buy a paper of needles, I have to get a little chap to bring them home, because it wouldn’t answer for me to be seen carrying a bundle through the streets. We have to keep three servants, where one might do; and Zebedee’s coats have to be sent to the tailor when they need a button sewed on, for the look of the thing. Then, if I go to the sea-shore, in summer, I can’t take my comfort, as rich people do, in gingham dresses, loose shoes and cambric sun-bonnets. No! I have to be done up by ten o’clock in a Swiss-muslin dress, and a French cap; and my Napoleon Bonaparte and Donna Maria can’t go off the piazza, because the big rocks and little pebbles cut their toes so badly through their patent kid slippers. Then, if Zebedee goes a fishing, he dare not put on a linen coat, for the price of his reputation. No, indeed! Why, he never goes to the barn-yard without drawing on his white kids. Then he orders the most ruinous wines at dinner, and fees those white jackets, till his purse is as empty as an egg-shell. I declare, it is abominably expensive. I don’t believe rich people have the least idea how much it costs poor people to live! OPENING OF THE CRYSTAL PALACE.