Night draws on apace; let us gather together all the straggling members of the family, sweep up the crumbs, call in the cat, bar the door, wind up the clock, and go to bed—
“To sleep, perchance to dream.”
[CHAPTER XXVI.]
ODDS AND ENDS.
“And our poor dream of happiness
Vanisheth, so
Farewell.”——Motherwell.
After a feast, the prudent and thrifty housewife will gather up the fragments that remain, if for no other purpose than to distribute them amongst the poor.
It was the constant habit of a certain elderly man of business, so long as he could stoop for the purpose, to pick up and stow away every pin and scrap of paper, or end of string, which he saw lying about on his premises. And when he could bend no longer to perform the operation himself, he would stand by the truant fragment, and vociferate loudly for one of his apprentices to come and “gather up the cord and string,” adding “’tis a pity they should spile.”
Approaching to the conclusion of our task, we have followed the old gentleman’s advice, and collected the odd pieces that have fallen to the ground in the course of our work, convinced that thrift is praiseworthy, and although only “Odds and Ends,” there may be enough of interest in them to warrant you in adding “’tis a pity they should spile.”