He was as easily satisfied as to clothing. The same blue coat with its large yellow buttons, the same leather breeches, mottled stockings, shoe-buckles, and cambric stock, had lasted him for many years, for he only wore them on Sundays; and it was quite enough for Margaret to buy his linen and the materials for his labourer’s frock when she purchased her own stuff petticoat in the fall of the year, and laid in her stock of winter oil. He would not even have more frequent intercourse with the shoemaker, though he wore many shoes. He sent his worn shoes to town twice a year, and new ones were always ready to be sent back by the same messenger. When people live so retired as Armstrong and his housekeeper, it is always supposed that they have some reason for dreading intercourse with their neighbours. It was believed, in the present case, that Armstrong was a miser, and that he kept a quantity of gold by him, of which he was afraid of any body getting a sight. It was prophesied, many a time, that he and Margaret would be found some day with their throats cut for the sake of this wealth. This was partly reasonable and partly false. Armstrong did keep money by him, and it was therefore likely that he would be robbed, if not murdered, living in so defenceless a way as his appeared to be. But he was no miser. He had been in trade in early life, and had lost money through the knavery of his partner. He immediately took a disgust to business, turned all he had into hard gold, bought this lone cottage and two acres of ground, and laid by two hundred guineas in a chest which he kept under his bed. Not all the reasonings of his friends about the uselessness of cash thus locked up, not all the hints that his life was not safe, not all the petitions of his only daughter that her husband might be allowed the use of the cash at a fair rate of interest, could induce him to unlock his chest. He declared that he would be cozened out of no more money; that he was resolved to leave his child two hundred guineas, and would not put it into the power even of her husband to lessen the sum; and as for thieves, he knew how to fire a pistol as well as any man, and could undertake to defend himself and Margaret and the cash-chest against more thieves than were likely to attack him. Of course, this was taken to be avarice; but he was by no means so careful in his expenditure as he might have been: he allowed two-thirds of his fruit and vegetables to rot, rather than sell them or let off any of his land; and what was more, he paid a boy for bringing a newspaper every morning as far as the foot of the steps, where he went to fetch it as soon as the lad had turned his back. No miser would have done this. A small yearly income arose from some commercial concern which was charged with an annuity to him. If any of this remained after the expenses of repairs, clothing, &c., were defrayed, he gave it all away the next Sunday to the poor whom he met in his way to the place of