"She likes them," interrupted the vivacious Elizabeth, "because she gets them for nothing. They come to her as cheap as the light of the sun, or the dews of heaven; and thus they are rendered quite as valuable in her eyes." "And that very cheapness, that freedom from exertion and expense by which they are obtained, is, I believe, the reason why they are generally so little valued," added Rosina. "People are apt to think things worthless which come to them so easily. They believe them cheap, if they are offered cheap. Now I think, without saying one word against those tracts, that they would be more valued, more perused, and exert far more influence, if they were only to be obtained by payment for them. If they do good now, it is to the publishers only; for I do not think the community in general is influenced by them in the slightest degree. If Dorcas feels more interested in them because she procures them gratuitously, it is because she is an exception to the general rule." "I like sometimes," said Dorcas, "to see the voice of instruction, of warning, of encouragement, and reproof, coming to the thoughtless, ignorant, poor and sinful, as it did from him who said to those whom he sent to inculcate its truths, Freely ye have received, _freely give_. The gospel is an expensive luxury now, and those only who can afford to pay their four, or six, or more, dollars a year, can hear its truths from the successors of him who lifted his voice upon the lonely mountain, and opened his lips for council at the table of the despised publican, or under the humble roof of the Magdalen."