SOME people have a singular reluctance to part with money. If waited
on for a bill, they say, almost involuntarily, "Call to-morrow,"
even though their pockets are far from being empty.

I once fell into this bad habit myself; but a little incident, which
I will relate, cured me. Not many years after I had attained my
majority, a poor widow, named Blake, did my washing and ironing. She
was the mother of two or three little children, whose sole
dependence for food and raiment was on the labour of her hands.

Punctually, every Thursday morning, Mrs. Blake appeared with my
clothes, "white as the driven snow;" but not always, as punctually,
did I pay the pittance she had earned by hard labour.

"Mrs. Blake is down stairs," said a servant, tapping at my room-door
one morning, while I was in the act of dressing myself.

"Oh, very well," I replied. "Tell her to leave my clothes. I will
get them when I come down."

The thought of paying the seventy-five cents, her due, crossed my
mind. But I said to myself,--"It's but a small matter, and will do
as well when she comes again."

There was in this a certain reluctance to part with money. My funds
were low, and I might need what change I had during the day. And so
it proved. As I went to the office in which I was engaged, some
small article of ornament caught my eye in a shop window.