LESSON 56 Kindness rewarded
One day a lady, who was riding in a coach, saw a lad on the road bare-foot and seemingly very foot-sore. She asked the coachman to take him up, and said she would pay for him. When the coach reached the end of its journey, the kind lady found that the poor lad was bound for the nearest sea-port, to offer himself as a sailor. Twenty years afterwards, on the same road, a sea-captain who was on a coach saw an old lady walking wearily along, and he made the coachman pull up his horses. He put the old lady inside, saying, "I'll pay for her." When they next changed horses the old lady thanked the captain; "for," said she, "I am too poor to pay for a ride now." The captain told her that he always felt for those who had to walk as she had been doing; and said, "I remember, twenty years ago, near this very place, I was a poor lad walking along the road, and a kind lady paid for me to ride."