The boy and his uncle sat at either end of the small oaken table, with the joint-stool between them, sipping their morning's porringer of bread and milk, in front of the little wood fire that crackled away on the hearth, for the autumn days had suddenly set in chilly.

"Now, Master Ben," began the godfather, "we have looked up our text, and are well primed for the discourse, so I hope you've got your sitting breeches on this morning, for I fancy we shall want some sticking-plaster, lad, to keep you to your chair before I have done with you. Yet stay! when we've got the porringers out of the way, you shall have my picture there of the old smithy at Ecton to copy; so you can sit and draw, while I walk about the room and talk, and that'll take the fidgets out of the pair of us."

It was not long before the breakfast things were cleared away, and room made at one corner of the table for the sheet of paper, as well as the painting that the boy was to work upon while he listened.

Then the old man, having cut a pencil for the youth with a knife that had no end of blades and a small set of tools besides in its handle, and lent him his box of colors for the occasion, said, "There, lad, now go to work; sketch the outline in lightly first, and then just fill in the little bits of color here—the red glare of the fire inside the forge, you see, and the dark, swarthy figure there of old Mat Wilcox; for that was meant for Mat. I wonder where he is now, poor fellow. I remember well his standing to me for the picture, just as you see him there, Ben, with his shirtsleeves rolled up, and his big leathern apron on, in the act of hammering away at the glowing bit of metal he holds in the pincers. And after that, lad, you can put in the black clouds of smoke pouring out of the forge chimney, and the gray

leaden sky there, as well as the bright green little specks of houseleek that the snow has not quite covered over on the roof at one part, you seeand the robin, too, perched on the thatch where the snow's thawed there by the flue, and with the trident marks of his feet all along the roof. Then that done, lad, you can pass on to color in the under parts of the boughs here of the old beechtree that grew beside the forge, and the two or three little children there peeping in at the door -let me see, whose children were they? Oh, I remember. "Ha-ah!" the old man sighed, "what would I give to see the old place again, and have all the fresh thoughts of one's youth rush back into one's brain! Ha-ah! but that can never be now. There," he broke off suddenly, as he flung the recollections from him, "you needn't take any particular pains over it, boy, for it isn't the sort of thing to please my taste now. There's too much white and too much bright color about it to suit my eye at present. Still, it's a nice thing to look upon, Ben, bad as it is—a very nice thing; for when I did it I was but little more than your own age, boy, and I can hardly glance at it now without feeling young again. However, this'll never do," he broke away suddenly again, "for we must go to work, the pair of us.'

CHAPTER XXIII.

A PEEP INTO THE HEART.

THE old man passed his hands behind his skirts, and began striding up and down the room as he said, "Well, lad, we understand something about the business and the amusements of life, and we now want to find out what are its duties."

“Oh yes, uncle,” cried the boy, "I know now what you mean; what I saw at the poor-house and the jail taught me a great deal."

"Not so fast, boy, not so fast! We'll see what is the lesson they ought to teach you by-and-by," rejoined the uncle. "All in good time, my little philosopher, all in good time. Now you remem⚫ber I told you, Ben, that to experience a sensual pleasure it is essential that the object should be immediately present to us? The sugar, for instance, is on our tongue, the perfume in our nostrils, the musical note ringing in the ear, and then we feel immediately, without any thought intervening, that the sensation is more or less agreeable to us. With an intellectual pleasure, however, the enjoyment is never derived directly from the sensible impression itself, but rather from the peculiar nature of the thoughts, or intellectual perceptions engendered within the brain. For instance, in the pleasure we derive from wit: the sensible impression which causes the perception of the odd association may be neither agreeable nor disagreeable to us. We may not care about the tone in which it is uttered, nor the paper and print on which we read it; but the perception of the extravagance in the connection of the ideas is no sooner forced upon us by such means than we are immediately thrown into convulsions of delight. So, again, with the imagery and suggestions of poetry, and the contemplation of works of high art, as well as the sublimities of nature; the mere sensation has nothing to do with the intellectual enjoyment farther than being the cause of the peculiar condition of mental exercise, excitement, or satisfaction we are thrown into, and from which alone the enjoyment proceeds."

"Yes, I think I can make out the difference