"It is always well, my boy, to know what a thing is worth, in case one wishes to part with it.

If my young gentleman gets tired of his plaything, what will you give him for it ?" "Why, sir," said the shopman, "I fear we could not afford to give more than eighteen shillings for it, unless the young gentleman took some of these pretty things in exchange." "Eighteen shillings!" said my father; "you would give that sum! Well, my boy, whenever you do grow tired of your box, you have my leave to sell it." My father paid his bill and went out.

I lingered behind a few moments, and joined him at the end of the street.
"Papa, papa," I cried, clapping my hands, "we can buy the geranium; we can buy the flower-pot." And I pulled a handful of silver from my pockets.
"Did I not say right ?" said my father, passing his handkerchief over his eyes.

"You have found the two fairies!" Oh! how proud, how overjoyed I was when, after placing vase and flower on the window-sill, I plucked my mother by the gown and made her follow me to the spot.
"It is his doing and his money!" said my father; "good actions have mended the bad." "What!" cried my mother, when she had learned all; "and your poor domino-box that you were so fond of! We will go back to-morrow and buy it back, if it costs us double." "Shall we buy it back, Pisistratus ?" asked my father.
"Oh, no--no--no! It would spoil all," I cried, burying my face on my father's breast.
"My wife," said my father, solemnly, "this is my first lesson to our child,--the sanctity and the happiness of self-sacrifice; undo not what it should teach to his dying day.".