The boy looked at his father a moment or two with an air of bewilderment and surprise; then he said, earnestly: "Just wait a little longer. I'll run down to the store and get it for you in a minute. I'm very sorry that I forgot it." "Run along, then," said Mr. Belknap, kindly. How fleetly the lad bounded away! His father gazed after him with an emotion of surprise, not unmixed with pleasure. "Yes--yes," he murmured, half aloud, "Mrs. Howitt never uttered a wiser saying. 'For love hath readier will than fear.'" Quicker than even Aunt Mary, whose faith in kind words was very strong, had expected, John came in with the hammer, a bright glow on his cheeks and a sparkle in his eyes that strongly contrasted with the utter want of interest displayed in his manner a little while before. "Thank you, my son," said Mr. Belknap, as he took the hammer; "I could not have asked a prompter service." He spoke very kindly, and in a voice of approval. "And now, John," he added, with the manner of one who requests, rather than commands, "if you will go over to Frank Wilson's, and tell him to come over and work for two or three days in our garden, you will oblige me very much. I was going to call there as I went to the store this morning; but it is too late now." "O, I'll go, father--I'll go," replied the boy, quickly and cheerfully. "I'll run right over at once." "Do, if you please," said Mr. Belknap, now speaking from an impulse of real kindness, for a thorough change had come over his feelings. A grateful look was cast, by John Thomas, into his father's face, and then he was off to do his errand. Mr. Belknap saw, and understood the meaning of that look. "Yes--yes--yes,--" thus he talked with himself as he took his way to the store,--"Aunt Mary and Mrs. Howitt are right. Love hath a readier will. I ought to have learned this lesson earlier. Ah! how much that is deformed in this self-willed boy, might now be growing in beauty." HELPING THE POOR. "I'M on a begging expedition," said Mr. Jonas, as he came bustling into the counting-room of a fellow merchant named Prescott. "And, as you are a benevolent man, I hope to get at least five dollars here in aid of a family in extremely indigent circumstances. My wife heard of them yesterday; and the little that was learned, has strongly excited our sympathies. So I am out on a mission for supplies. I want to raise enough to buy them a ton of coal, a barrel of flour, a bag of potatoes, and a small lot of groceries." "Do you know anything of the family for which you propose this charity?" inquired Mr. Prescott, with a slight coldness of manner. "I only know that they are in want and that it is the first duty of humanity to relieve them," said Mr. Jonas, quite warmly. "I will not question your inference," said Mr. Prescott. "To relieve the wants of our suffering fellow creatures is an unquestionable duty. But there is another important consideration connected with poverty and its demands upon us."