commencing housekeeping in a small way, Jacob saw but one course
before him, and that was to rent a genteel house, go in debt for
genteel furniture, and keep two servants. Two years were the longest
that he could bear up under this state of things, when he was sold
out by the sheriff, and forced "to go through the mill again," as
taking the benefit of the insolvent law was facetiously called in
the State where he resided.

"Poor fellow! he has a hard time of it. I wonder why it is that he
gets along so badly. He is an industrious man and regular in his
habits. It is strange. But some men seem born to ill-luck."

So said some of his pitying friends. Others understood the matter
better.

Ten years have passed, and Jacob is still a clerk, but not in a
store. Hopeless of getting into business, he applied for a vacancy
that occurred in an insurance company, and received the appointment,
which he still holds at a salary of twelve hundred dollars a year.
After being sold out three times by the sheriff, and having the deep
mortification of seeing her husband brought down to the humiliating
necessity of applying as often for the benefit of the insolvent law,
Mrs. Jones took affairs, by consent of her husband, into her own
hands, and managed them with such prudence and economy, that,
notwithstanding they have five children, the expenses, all told, are
not over eight hundred dollars a year, and half of the surplus, four
hundred dollars, is appropriated to the liquidation of debts
contracted since their marriage, and the other half deposited in the
Savings Bank, as a fund for the education of their children in the
higher branches, when they reach a more advanced age.