That was the last night that Seth Thompson and his children slept on their hard straw sacks on the floor,—the last day that they wore rags and tatters, and dined upon potatoes and salt. Seth's uncle placed him in a comfortable cottage, bought him suitable furniture, gave him a purse of 50_l._ for ready money, and promised him a half-yearly remittance from Jamaica, for the remainder of his, the uncle's, life, with a certainty of a considerable sum at his death. Seth and his wife could not listen, for a moment, to a proposal for leaving England, although they had experienced little but misery in it, their whole lives. The uncle, however, obtained from them a promise that they would not restrain any of their children from going out to Jamaica; and did not leave them till he had seen them fairly and comfortably settled, and beheld what he thought a prospect of comfort for them, in the future. Indeed, on the very morning succeeding that in which Seth's new fortune became known, the hitherto despised stockinger was sent for by the principal manufacturer of hosen, in Hinckley, and offered "a shop of frames," in the language of the working men; that is, he was invited to become a "master," or one who receives the "stuff" from the capitalist or manufacturer, and holds of him, likewise, a given number of frames,—varying from half-a-dozen to a score or thirty, or even more; and thus becomes a profit-sharing middleman between the manufacturer and the labouring framework-knitters. Seth accepted the offer, for it seemed most natural to him to continue in the line of manufacture to which he had been brought up; and his uncle, with pleasurable hopes for his prosperity, bade him farewell!— "Well, my dear," said Seth to his wife, as they sat down to a plentiful dinner, surrounded with their neatly-dressed and happy children, the day after the uncle's departure, "we used to say we should never prove the truth of the old proverb, but we have proved it at last: times came to the worst with us, and began to mend." "Thank God! we have proved it, my love," replied the wife; "and I wish our poor neighbours could prove it as well." Seth sighed,—and was silent.——