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Who Are Happiest?
by
One evening, a few days after this time, Aiken came home from his work. As he entered the room where his wife and children sat, the former looked up to him with a cheerful smile of welcome, and the latter gathered around him, filling his ears with the music of their happy voices. The father drew an arm around one and another, and, as he sat in their midst, his heart swelled in his bosom, and warmed with a glow of happiness.
Soon the evening meal was served–served by the hands of his wife–the good angel of his humble home. William Aiken, as he looked around upon his smiling children, and their true-hearted, even-tempered, cheerful mother, felt that he had many blessings for which he should be thankful.
“I saw something, a little while ago, that I shall not soon forget,” said he, when alone with his wife.
“What was that, William?”
“I had occasion to call at the house of Mr. Elder, on some business, as I came home this evening. Mr. Elder is rich, and I have often envied him; but I shall do so no more. I found him in his sitting-room, alone, walking the floor with a troubled look on his face. He glanced at me with an impatient expression as I entered. I mentioned my business, when he said abruptly and rudely–
“‘I’ve no time to think of that now.’
“As I was turning away, a door of the room opened, and Mrs. Elder and two children entered.
“‘I wish you would send those children up to the nursery,’ he exclaimed, in a fretful half-angry voice. ‘I’m in no humour to be troubled with them now.’
“The look cast upon their father by those two innocent little children, as their mother pushed them from the room, I shall not soon forget. I remembered, as I left the house, that there had been a large failure in Market street, and that Mr. Elder was said to be the loser by some ten thousand dollars–less than a twentieth part of what he is worth. I am happier than he is to-night, Mary.”
“And happier you may ever be, William,” returned his wife, “if you but stoop to the humble flowers that spring up along your pathway, and, like the bee, take the honey they contain. God knows what, in external things, is best for us; and he will make either poverty or riches, whichsoever comes, a blessing, if we are humble, patient and contented.”