Mrs. Winter at this moment entered the shop. She had grown old, and now wore widow's weeds, but her face was still placid and cheerful as before. "I have brought you the cake, Nelly," said she, laying an elegant sugared pyramid before her. "Is it not fit for a wedding-day feast? Do you remember just this day twenty years ago, when you were no higher than this counter, your coming to my shop to buy half-a-dozen biscuits as a treat for your expected new brother? Ah! He is more to you now than he was then!" "How can I remember so far back!" laughed Nelly. "It seems to me as though it were scarce a day since! There stood Goldie—poor man! Who once owned this shop—a prosperous man he was then! He laughed, I remember, at your childish honesty, laughed at your father's kind adoption of Walter—he thought only of getting on in the world! And what has it all come to at last! There is now another name above his door, there is another face behind his counter—he lies in the churchyard beside his poor wife, and his very name is almost forgotten! And this is the end of his labours and his cares, his rising up early and late taking rest—his flattering, and toiling, and unscrupulous ways! All that is left to him now of his gains is a coffin, and a shroud, and a few feet of earth!" "Alas! Poor Goldie," said Nelly sadly, "He was unfortunate!" "Unhappy, if you will, but not unfortunate; fortune had nothing to do with either his lot or your father's. Worldliness, Sabbath-breaking, neglect of religion only brought forth their natural fruits to Goldie—while all Viner's present happiness and prosperity arose from—" The old man turned towards her with glistening eyes, pressing his little grandchild closer to his heart, while he closed her sentence with Nelly's favourite text—"'The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich, and He addeth no sorrow thereto.'" Walter now entered with a springing step and bright eye. His child stretched out his little arms to go to him, and Nelly greeted her husband with a smile. "You see that I have not forgotten what day it is," he said, laying down on the counter a beautifully carved box, with his wife's name cut on the lid. "That is my wedding present for you, dear Nelly; as it has pleased God to prosper us so well in business, and between my carving and your fruit selling, we now have enough and to spare, I have resolved to keep a poor box from this time, and on the first day of the week, as St. Paul recommends, lay aside of our earnings for the needy." "Well, Viner," observed Mrs. Winter, as she was leaving the place, and turned to bid farewell to the aged Christian, on whose silvery hair and venerable brow the rich glow of the setting sun was falling, "if I were asked to name a truly happy man, I should not have far to look for one—I should point to you in your arm-chair there, with your loving family around you."