“Mr. Bernard’s family seem to me to have found the right medium. The lads show by the way they set about learning their business that they have been used to put their souls into their pursuits, and the young ladies and Mrs. Sidney were out on foot every day during the winter in their cloth cloaks and stout shoes, and they seldom went back without carrying a blessing with them. Not that they gave alms. Nobody here wants any, thank Heaven! and if any one did, Mrs. Sidney knows there is no real kindness in giving away money as alms. But they attached the people to them, and put them in the way of managing better, and helped to keep up good-will among neighbours, and incited many a one to industry by proper encouragement. These are the personal services the rich are called upon to render; and to this Mr. Bernard adds an expenditure which can never be repented of. I was in his drawing-room once, and I saw at a glance the nature of his luxuries.” “What did you see?” “Every thing that was useful and comfortable in the way of furniture, and all that was handsome and genteel in the dress of the ladies. But I was more struck with the books and the globes and the musical instruments and the pictures.” “Then you do not object to all luxuries?” “O dear no. Whatever helps to inform the mind and improve the taste is a proper object of pursuit to those who can afford it. It is a productive expenditure in a very high sense. Mr. Bernard will, I hope, live to see a fine return for the money he spends on his library in the talent and knowledge which his sons will employ in the service of society. And the accomplishments of his daughters will not only increase the domestic pleasures of all connected with them, but stimulate production, if you will have the whole matter before you. Harps and pianos are made up of labour and capital as much as pig-iron.” “What a romantic lover you would make!” said Mr. Wallace, laughing. “What a strange figure you would cut in high life if you carried your method of reasoning into an exalted station!”