tendance, and leave to the most pitiable ignorance, and the most
wretched emergencies of want. The life that is wasted upon dahlias,
must, prima facie, be the life of one heartless and insensible,
and most probably, brutish in a high degree.

But Alfred Stevens had very little time for further reflection.
They were at the door of the cottage. Never did the widow Cooper
receive her parson in more tidy trim, and with an expression of
less qualified delight. She brought forth the best chair, brushed
the deerskin-seat with her apron, and having adjusted the old man
to her own satisfaction as well as his, she prepared to do a like
office for the young one. Having seated them fairly, and smoothed
her apron, and gone through the usual preliminaries, and placed
herself a little aloof, on a third seat, and rubbed her hands, and
struggled into a brief pause in her brisk action, she allowed her
tongue to do the office for which her whole soul was impatient.

"Oh, Brother Cross, what a searching sermon you gave us yesterday.
You stirred the hearts of everybody, I warrant you, as you stirred
up mine. We've been a needing it for a precious long time, I
tell you; and there's no knowing what more's a wanting to make us
sensible to the evil that's in us. I know from myself what it is,
and I guess from the doings of others. We're none of us perfect,
that's certain; but it's no harm to say that some's more and some's
not so perfect as others. There's a difference in sin, Brother
Cross, I'm a thinking, and I'd like you to explain why, and what's
the difference. One won't have so much, and one will have more; one
will take a longer spell of preaching, and half the quantity will
be a dose to work another out clean, entire. I'm not boastful for
myself, Brother Cross, but I do say, I'd give up in despair if I