Daisy of "Old Meadow."

Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.
THE following pages are issued with two objects:—
First; they may be used for daily meditation on rising or retiring to rest, in the quiet chamber, when none but God is near.
Secondly; for short services in sick chambers, or for invalids. Many a child of God suffers from infirmities of such a nature that none but a very short service can be borne. This may be carried out by reading the whole chapter, or a portion of it, from which the text is taken; then the address, and the poem. This may be preceded or followed by a short prayer, thus compressing the entire service within ten minutes or a quarter of an hour.
I am aware of the many and great deficiencies which mark these addresses. But they have been issued with one desire and one aim—to glorify Jesus. May He thus use them, by His Holy Spirit, for this end is my earnest prayer!
ST. MARY'S, HASTINGS,
October, 1885.
CHAP.
HE'S the crookedest crabbedest cantankerousest old fellow ever I came across, and that's all I have to say! And she's a little angel, if ever there was one, and that's all I have to say too!
It might have been all that Betsy Simmons had to say, but it certainly was not all that she did say. For, finding her hearer not indisposed to listen, she started off afresh. Betsy Simmons was fresh-complexioned, large in make, and verging on fifty. The other, a younger woman by many years, was quiet and thoughtful in look, with a face and a manner some degrees superior to her poor style of dress.
He comes in here of a morning, every day, punctual as the clock is on the stroke of nine. And he pokes into everything and fingers everything, afore he'll have his penn'orth or two penn'orth of this or that, till I'm driven nigh crazy. 'Tisn't much more than a penn'orth that he'll take, commonly. But there's often a deal more of fuss with customers about a penn'orth than about a pound's worth. Well, and I know one thing, and that is that if he's after starving anybody, it is Miss Meads and not Mr. Meads, and that you may be sure. He's an old skinflint, and all the world knows it. They do say, and Mrs. Simmons lowered her voice, they do say as he broke his wife's heart; and I shouldn't wonder but he's going near to break his daughter's too. Not as she speaks a word of complaint—no, she isn't that sort, little angel as she is.