hear much of good, sensible talk. I read many well-written books. I was taken to see many wonderful sights. I had much spare time to think over what I had seen, and heard, and read. This is why I think it would be a sin and a shame, where so much has been done for me, if I did not try to do what I can for others.

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CHAPTER I.

THE FIRST SHILLING.

I CANNOT remember anything about the place where I was born. It was in a cottage somewhere near Chiswick, in the year 1790; but my parents went to live in London, when I was only three years old. My father soon got work as a hackney-coachman. Having a large family of us to bring up, he could not stand a heavy rent; so we had to put up with a couple of small rooms in a court at the back of Liquorpond Street. My mother went out charring, whenever she could get a day's work; and when she was at home, she had her hands quite full, what with washing and stitching for us nine children. My eldest sister was an idiot, and needed more care than any of the rest. Fanny, the second in age, was a cripple, and very weakly; so that although she did her best for us if we were left alone, mother would let her do nothing but rest when she was at home. Father was out the whole day, from early morning till after we young ones were in bed at night; and for the most part it was only on Sundays we saw him. He had that whole day well nigh

always to himself. It was not then as I am sorry to see it is now. There were only about a thousand hackney-coaches allowed at that time; and only from a hundred and fifty to two hundred of these were out on a Sunday.

In my younger days, there were no Sundayschools; not in London, that is; or, at least, not in our part of it. The plan was just be-. ginning new. In 1781, the idea had been thought of by Mr. Robert Raikes. I never hear of Gloucester without thinking of that good man. "The memory of the just is blessed;" and Raikes's name will be handed down from age to age with children's blessings ever heaped upon it higher and higher. I need not stop here to tell how he felt, and what he planned, and what he did. The story is too well known to need repeating. It was not till near about 1800 that unpaid teachers came forward to give their hearts and hands to the good work; and it was but slowly that Sabbath-schools came to be what they now

are.

What little I learned of reading, I got at first from my father on Sundays. He had seen better days, so that he knew a little more than our neighbours did; for poverty and ignorance generally went together at that time. I cannot say that father was a God-fearing man, in the right sense of the word; but he had some kind of notion that church-going was right, and he took care to have one or

other of us go with him every Sunday morning. Sometimes it was to St. Andrew's, Holborn; sometimes, to St. James's, Clerkenwell; but whether the gospel was then preached in either place, I believe he neither knew, nor cared to know. He was a great man for what he called 'doing his duty; but I am afraid he thought his duty done, when he had just stopped the service through. After dinner he would have a long nap, as driving so much in the air always made him very sleepy when he sat in-doors. But as soon as he was brisk again after a cup of tea, he took to teaching us our letters, and making us spell out our words.

I must say, father did his best to bring us up well, as times went. He was wonderful for his high ideas of justice and honesty. He always said they were "cordial virtues." I have since thought he must have meant “cardinal virtues"—that is, (as I have heard it explained,) the chief virtues, on which the others turn, as if it were on a hinge. No doubt he had picked up the phrase wrong. But I do not wonder at the word he used; for when he heard of anything upright and honourable, it always seemed to do his heart good, and refresh his spirits, just as a cordial medicine revives one who is faint and weak.

mere

In his case, the love of honesty was no fancy" thing. It was not what he kept to look at from afar off. He knew how to bring it into use. When he had the call

to it, he always did what was just and right. I recollect, one evening, some of us younger ones had sat up a little later than usual, and we were all cowering round the bit of fire we had, when father came in. As he sat eating his supper, he pulled a purse out of his pocket.

"See here," said he, "that's what I found at the bottom of my coach to-night; it's a lady's purse, isn't it?" Mother looked at it, and said, “Like enough; but what of that? you can't know for certain whose it is." Then father went on to say he had had fewer fares than usual that day, and those few were either gentlemen, or else ladies that paid him. with their purses in their hands, and he was sure none of them had been anything like that one. "But," he added, "the last fare I took was two ladies, and only one of 'em gave me the money; so, I take it, this was let fall by t'other. You send Nancy round in the morning with this purse to where I set 'em down, and let her ask if it's all right. Now you mind, Nancy," he said, turning to me, not a penny that's in here, (if there's coppers at all in it,) not one penny is your'n; so you be an honest girl, father's own girl, and give it to the lady just as mother gives it to you in the morning.' Then he counted over what was in it, to make quite sure, and to show me that I should be found out if I took any away. I should not have dared to touch it, not I; for I knew father would never screen even a

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