of sheep when I was eleven years old, and Allan even younger than that; and even after I was set free of the sheep the butter and cheese and bacon that I helped mother to make went far to keep the house, and let my father save money for land and stock. He never would like us to marry out of our degree to be looked down on by our husband's kin."
"I may be below your degree here," sad Copeland, "but my relatives at home are different. If I had not been a scapegrace and idle and fond of adventure, and gone off to sea when I should have stuck by my father, I might have been your equal in means; but I have never settled in my life, and have always spent my money as fast as I earned it. What will become of the wage I am to get from your father to-morrow, God knows—I don't. I used to say that I would begin to save next year, But lately I have given over even that salve to my conscience."
"George," said Jessie, earnestly, "there's good in you or you never could have taken such a hold of my heart. It is not for my own sake I say it, but for the sake of the father and mother that weary for you, and for the sake of the wife you will one day have, and of the God that gave you talents and opportunities that you have no right to throw away, make a beginning now.
