"Sir," said the farmer, "'tis no great matter of expense; I kill a sheep of my own; potatoes are as plenty as blackberries, with people who have a little forethought. I save much more cider in the course of a year by never allowing any carousing in my kitchen, or drunkenness in my fields, than would supply many such feasts as these, so that I shall be never the poorer at Christmas. It is cheaper to make people happy, sir, than to make them drunk." The Doctor and the ladies condescended to walk from one table to the other, and heard many merry stories, but not one profane word, or one indecent song: so that he was not forced to the painful necessity either of reproving them, or leaving them in anger. When all was over, they sung the sixty-fifth Psalm, and the ladies all joined in it; and when they got home to the vicarage to tea, they declared they liked it better than any concert. THE HARD WINTER. In the famous cold winter of the year 1795, it was edifying to see how patiently Farmer White bore that long and severe frost. Many of his sheep were frozen to death, but he thanked God that he had still many left. He continued to find in-door work that his men might not be out of employ. The season being so bad, which some others pleaded as an excuse for turning off their workmen, he thought a fresh reason for keeping them. Mrs. White was so considerate, that just at that time she lessened the number of her hogs, that she might have more whey and skim-milk to assist poor families. Nay, I have known her to live on boiled meat for a long while together, in a sickly season, because the pot liquor made such a supply of broth for the sick poor. As the spring came on, and things grew worse, she never had a cake, a pie, or a pudding in her house; notwithstanding she used to have plenty of these good things, and will again, I hope, when the present scarcity is over; though she says she will never use such white flour again, even if it should come down to five shillings a bushel.