"He must be a good man," said the boy. "What's his name?" "His name is Mr. Edgar." "I will ask God to bless him to-night when I say my prayers," innocently spoke out the youngest of the three children. "What does all this mean?" asked the money-lender, as he hastily retired from the room he had entered. "If you had charged me one per cent. on my note, this scene would never have occurred," answered the mechanic. "With the sum you generously saved me, I was able to buy these comforts. My heart blesses you for the deed; and if the good wishes of my happy family can throw sunshine across your path, it will be full of brightness." Too much affected to reply, Mr. Edgar returned the warm pressure of the hand which had grasped his, and glided away. A gleam of sunshine had indeed fallen along the pathway of the money-lender. Home had a brighter look as he passed his own threshold. He felt kinder and more cheerful; and kindness and cheerfulness flowed back to him from all the inmates of his dwelling. He half wondered at the changed aspect worn by every thing. His dreams that night were not of losses, fires, and the wreck of dearly-cherished hopes, but of the humble home made glad by his generous kindness. Again the happy mother, the pleased children, and the grateful father, were before him, and his own heart leaped with a new delight. "It was a small act--a very light sacrifice on my part," said Mr. Edgar to himself, as he walked, in a musing mood, toward his office on the next morning. "And yet of how much real happiness has it been the occasion! So much that a portion thereof has flowed back upon my own heart." "A good act is twice blessed." It seemed as if the words were spoken aloud, so distinctly and so suddenly were they presented to the mind of Mr. Edgar. Ah, if he will only heed that suggestion, made by some pure spirit, brought near to him by the stirring of good affections in his mind! In it lies the secret of true happiness. Let him but act therefrom, and the sunshine will never be absent from his pathway. ENGAGED AT SIXTEEN. "MRS. LEE is quite fortunate with her daughters," remarked a visitor to Mrs. Wyman, whose oldest child, a well grown girl of fifteen, was sitting by. "Yes; Kate and Harriet went off in good time. She has only Fanny left." "Who is to be married this winter." "Fanny?" "She is engaged to Henry Florence." "Indeed! And she is only just turned of sixteen. How fortunate, truly! Some people have their daughters on their hands until they are two or three-and-twenty, when the chances for good matches are very low. _I_ was only sixteen when _I_ was married." "Certainly; and then I had rejected two or three young men. There is nothing like early marriages, depend upon it, Mrs. Clayton. They always turn out the best. The most desirable young men take their pick of the youngest girls, and leave the older ones for second-rate claimants."