They were no children; there was no reason
for delay; so everybody knew of the engagement
immediately, and the preparations went
on diligently.

A pastor's marriage is always a season of
great interest and amusement. In this case
it was unusually diverting from the singular
innocence of the gentleman about all household
affairs. He showed all the solicitude of
which he was capable to have everything
right and comfortable for Joanna; but his
ideas were so extraordinary, that his friends
suspected that he had been quizzed by certain
youths of his congregation, who had indeed
made solemn suggestions to him about dredging-
boxes and rolling-pins, and spigots, and
ball-irons, and other conveniences, the names
of which were strange to him. He had
promised to leave the whole concern of
furnishing in the hands of a discreet lady and
her daughters, with a power of appeal to
Mrs. Carey in doubtful cases; but when
these mysterious names had been lying on his
mind for some days, he could not help making
inquiries and suggestions, which brought
nothing but laughter upon him. Mr. and
Mrs. Carey thought the quizzing went rather
too far; but Joanna did not seem to mind it.

"His head should not be stuffed with
nonsense," observed Mr. Carey to his wife,
"when business that he really ought to be
attending to is left undone."

"You mean the Life Insurance," replied
she. "Why do you not remind him of it?"

"I believe I must. But it is not a pleasant
thing to do. No man in his circumstances
ought to need to be spoken to more than
once. However, I have to suggest to him
to insure all this pretty furniture that his
friends are giving him; and while I am
speaking about the Fire Insurance, I can
easily mention the more important one."

"I should feel no difficulty," observed Mrs.
Carey. "He will be purely thankful to you
for telling him what he ought to do."

An opportunity soon occurred. The
presents came in fast: the Careys were consulted
about how to stow them all. One evening at
supper, the conversation naturally turned—as
it probably does in every house—on what
should be saved first in case of fire. Mr. Carey
asked Mr. Ellison whether his landlord had
not insured the cottage, and whether he
himself was not thinking of insuring the
furniture from fire.

Instant opposition arose from Mr. Carey's
second daughter, Charlotte, who declared that
she could not bear to think of such a thing.
She begged that nobody would speak of such a
thing. Indeed, she wondered that anybody
could. When induced to explain the emotions
with which her mind was labouring, she
declared her horror that any one belonging to
her could feel that any money could compensate
for the loss of the precious things, such
as old letters, and fond memorials, which
perish in a fire.

"How old are you, my dear?" inquired her
father.

"Sixteen, papa."

"Indeed! I should have taken you to be
six years younger. I should wonder at a
child of ten talking so sillily as you are
doing."

Mr. Ellison stared; for his sympathy with
Charlotte's sentiment was so strong, that he
was looking at her with beaming eyes, and
softly ejaculating, "Dear Charlotte! dear
child!"

It took some time to convince both (for
young ladies of sixteen sometimes see things
less clearly than six years before and ten years
after that age) that, if precious papers and
gifts are unhappily lost in a fire, that is no
reason why tables and chairs, and fish-kettles
and dredging-boxes, and carpets and house
linen should not be paid for by an Insurance
Office; but at last both young lady and
pastor saw this. Still, Charlotte did not look
satisfied; and her father invited her to utter
what was in her mind. After some fencing
about whether her thoughts were silly, and
whether it would be silly to speak them, out
came the scruple. Was there not something
worldly in thinking so much about money
and the future?

"Dear Charlotte! dear child!" again
soliloquised Mr. Ellison.

Mr. Carey did not think the apprehension
silly; but, in his opinion, the danger of
worldliness lay the other way. He thought the
worldliness lay in a man's spending all his
income, leaving wife and children to be
maintained by their neighbours, in case of accidents
which may happen any day to anybody, and
which do happen to a certain proportion of
people, within an assigned time, as regularly
as death happens to all. Charlotte had
nothing to say against life insurance, because
every man knows that he shall die; and there
is no speculation in the case. But she was
extremely surprised to hear that there is an
equal certainty, though of a narrower extent,
about fire, and other accidents; that it is a
fact that, out of so many householders, such
and such a number will have their houses
burned down.

"Is it indeed so?" asked Joanna.

"It is indeed so. Moreover, out of so
much property, such and such an amount
will perish by fire. Every householder being
bound in with this state of things for his
share of the risk, he owes it equally to others
and to himself to secure the compensation, in
case of accident. Does he not?"

"How to others?"

"Because he should contribute his share to
the subscription, if you like to call it so, by
which the sufferer from fire, whoever he be,
is to be compensated. Thus, you see,
Charlotte, that which seems to you an act of
worldliness is a neighbourly act, as well as
a prudent one."

When reminded, Charlotte admitted that