One evening I received an invitation to dinner from Mr. Lawson, a retired tradesman in easy circumstances, who within the last three years had settled in his native village. Mr. Lawson was a man of no education, but possessed of an active mind; his manners were unpolished yet agreeable; and though he had been busily engaged in the trading world for more than twenty years, he had quite acquired the habits of a country gentleman. His garden was his favourite amusement; there he toiled early and late, displaying great taste in its cultivation, and often availing himself of the gratification of sending a portion of its fruits to some of his old city friends. He married early in life, and made what was thought a prudent choice; he had no fortune with his wife, but soon found he had a fortune _in_ her; for what he gained by industry, she preserved by rigid economy. He used often to repeat with satisfaction one of her choice maxims--_those tradesmen who begin life as gentlefolks, often end life as paupers_. Mrs. Lawson's early habits of economy in process of time degenerated into extreme parsimony; and though she would often talk of charity, yet she usually excused herself from the practice of this virtue by quoting the common adage--_we must be just before we are generous_. Though a rigid economy was the order of the house, Mrs. Lawson was more anxious for the education of her children than her husband. He often used to say, "Where is the necessity of spending so much money in education, when we got on well enough without it?" To which she would aptly reply, "The times are changed, and if we wish our children to move with respectability in that rank of life to which their fortunes will elevate them, we must train them up for it."