Effie Maurice | Page 8

Impulse, and though this is a good act, unless she has a better heart than
most people, it is no true sign that the next one will be good.'
'Very true, my son, but you have not explained to Effie what you mean
by impulse and principle.'
'You can explain it better than I can, mother. I don't remember half that
father said about it.'
'Well, tell me as much as you can remember then.'
'Why, principle means ground of action, and people who are governed
by principle always have some good reason for what they do, and do
not act without thinking. Father says old people are more apt to be
governed by principle of some kind, either good or bad, than children,

for he says children generally act first, and think afterwards.'
'And impulse?' inquired Effie.
'People that act from impulse are altogether at the mercy of
circumstances, and are driven about by their own feelings. They never
wait to inquire whether a thing is right before they do it, but if it seems
right for the minute it is sufficient.'
Harry's explanation seemed quite satisfactory to his mother, and what
was just then of more importance, to Effie, who, it was but natural,
should find some fault with a definition which seemed to throw
anything like discredit on her new favourite. Any further allusion to the
subject was, however, prevented by the entrance of Mr Maurice, who,
as he had been out all day, making charitable and professional instead
of fashionable calls, had some very interesting stories to relate. But
there was one so strange, and to the children so new, that it threw the
rest quite into the shade, and absorbed their whole stock of sympathy. It
was late before Mr Maurice finished his story, and as it may be late
before our readers get to a better stopping-place, we shall reserve it fer
another chapter.
CHAPTER IV.
THE MISER.
'In passing through a narrow back lane,' said Mr Maurice, after relating
several tales of minor importance, 'I paused to look upon a low building,
so old that one corner of it was sunken so much as to give it a tottering
appearance, and if possible it was more dark and dismal than the others.
It seemed to be occupied by several families, for a little gray smoke
went straggling up from two or three crumbling chimneys, but the
rooms were all on the ground floor. As I stood gazing at it, I was
startled by a boy (about your age, Harry, or a little older perhaps) who
came bounding from the door, and grasping my coat untreated me to go
in and see his grandfather.'
'Did you go, father?' inquired Effie, 'wasn't you afraid?'

'Afraid! what had he to be afraid of?' exclaimed her brother, 'I should
just as lief go as not.' Yet, notwithstanding the little boy's vaunt there
was a slight tremor on his lip, and his large blue eyes grew larger still
and darker where they were dark, while the whites became unusually
prominent.
'Of course I went,' resumed Mr Maurice, in a sad tone, 'and a fearful
spectacle did I behold. I had expected to see some poor widow, worn
out by toil and suffering, perchance by anguish and anxiety, dying
alone, or a family of helpless ones, such as I had often visited, or a
drunken husband. I had often glanced at guilt and crime, but never
would my imagination have pictured the scene before me. The room
was dark and loathsome, containing but few articles of furniture, and
those battered and defaced by age, and with a rickety bed in one corner,
on which lay stretched in mortal agony the figure of a wrinkled,
gray-haired old man, apparently approaching the final struggle. O my
children, poverty, loneliness, want, are the portion of many on this fair,
beautiful earth, but such utter wretchedness as appeared in that man's
face, can only be the result of crime.' Mr Maurice was evidently deeply
affected, and his wife and children were for a moment silent.
'Was he dying, father?' at length Harry ventured to inquire, in a
subdued tone.
'He seemed very weak, except now and then when he was seized with
convulsions, and then he would writhe and throw himself about, and it
was more than I could do to keep him on his bed--I do not think it
possible for him to survive till morning.'
'Didn't he say anything, father?'
'It was a long time before he said anything, but after I had succeeded in
warming some liquid, which I found in an old broken cup, over the
decayed fire, I gave him a little of it, and in time he became much
calmer. Between his paroxysms of pain, I induced him to