price of a few coppers?"

"Don't wrong them, brother," answered Deacon Tilton, a simple and kindly
old man. "Copper may do more for one person, than gold will for
another. In the galleries, where I present my box, we must not expect
such a harvest as you gather among the gentry in the broad aisle, and
all over the floor of the church. My people are chiefly poor mechanics
and laborers, sailors, seamstresses, and servant-maids, with a most
uncomfortable intermixture of roguish school-boys."

"Well, well," said Deacon Trott; "but there is a great deal, Brother
Tilton, in the method of presenting a contribution-box. It is a knack
that comes by nature, or not at all."

They now proceeded to sum up the avails of the evening, beginning with
the receipts of Deacon Trott. In good sooth, that worthy personage had
reaped an abundant harvest, in which he prided himself no less,
apparently, than if every dollar had been contributed from his own
individual pocket. Had the good deacon been meditating a jaunt to
Texas, the treasures of the mahogany box might have sent him on his way
rejoicing. There were bank-notes, mostly, it is true, of the smallest
denominations in the giver's pocket-book, yet making a goodly average
upon the whole. The most splendid contribution was a check for a
hundred dollars, bearing the name of a distinguished merchant, whose
liberality was duly celebrated in the newspapers of the next day. No
less than seven half-eagles, together with an English sovereign,
glittered amidst an indiscriminate heap of silver; the box being
polluted with nothing of the copper kind, except a single bright new
cent, wherewith a little boy had performed his first charitable act.