Snowflakes and Sunbeams

When Charles arrived at the age of fifteen and Kate attained to fourteen years, old Mr. Kennedy went into his conservatory, locked the door, sat down on an easy chair, filled a long clay pipe with his beloved tobacco, smoked vigorously for ten minutes, and fell fast asleep. In this condition he remained until the pipe fell from his lips and broke in fragments on the floor. He then rose, filled another pipe, and sat down to meditate on the subject that had brought him to his smoking apartment. "There's my wife," said he, looking at the bowl of his pipe, as if he were addressing himself to it, "she's getting too old to be looking after everything herself (_puff_), and Kate's getting too old to be humbugging any longer with books: besides, she ought to be at home learning to keep house, and help her mother, and cut the baccy (_puff_), and that young scamp Charley should be entering the service (_puff_). He's c