“Every where, mother!”—he laid the book on the table—“I earned a penny, and I’ve got a place—there!” “Got a place!” repeated the woman; and then her face flushed—“with whom? how?” He detailed the particulars. “And I gave the penny, mother dear,” he added, “to read the ‘Works of Benjamin Franklin,’ which will teach me how to grow rich and good; I’ll read the book to you this evening, while you work.” The flush on her cheek faded to deadly paleness. “I don’t know what’s the matter with my eyes, Richard—they are so weak.” “Looking on the snow, mother; mine grow weak when I look on the snow.” How she caught at the straw!—“I never thought of that, Richard; I dare say it is bad. And what did ye with the penny, dear?” “I told you, mother; I got the reading of the ‘Works of Benjamin Franklin’ for it, and it’s a book that will do me great good; I read two or three pages here and there of it, at the very shop where I am to be employed, when I was there for Thomas Brand, before he died. It was just luck that took me there to look for it—the book, I mean—and then the gentleman offered me the place; I’m sure I have worn, as Ned Brady says, ‘the legs off my feet,’ tramping after places—and _that_ to offer itself to _me_—think of that, mother! Poor Tom Brand had four shillings a-week, but he could not make out a bill—I can; Benjamin Franklin (he wrote ‘Poor Richard’s Almanac,’ you know) says, ‘there are no gains without pains;’ and I’m sure poor father took pains enough to teach me, though I have the gains, and he had the——” The entrance of his future master arrested Richard’s eloquence; he made a few inquiries, found his way into a back kitchen to the landlady, and, being satisfied with what he heard, engaged the lad at four shillings a-week; he looked kindly at the gentle mother, and uncomfortably at the grate; then slid a shilling into Mrs. Dolland’s hand, “in advance.” “It was not ‘luck,’ Richard,” said she to her son, after the long, gaunt-looking man of books had departed; “it’s all come of God’s goodness!” There was a fire that evening in the widow’s little room, and a whole candle was lit; and a cup of tea, with the luxuries of milk, sugar, and a little loaf, formed their new-year’s fête; and yet two-pence remained out of the bookseller’s loan! When their frugal meal was finished, Mrs. Dolland worked on mechanically, and Richard threaded her needle; the boy read aloud to her certain passages which he thought she might like, he wondered she was not more elated at his success; she seemed working unconsciously, and buried in her own thoughts; at last, and not without a feeling of pain, he ceased reading aloud, and forgot all external cares in the deep interest he took in the self-helping volume that rested on his lap. Suddenly he looked up, aroused by a sort of half-breathed sigh; his mother’s large eyes were fixed upon him—there was something in the look and the expression he thought he had never seen before.