But I should wrong thee, O best of fathers, if I suffered the reader to suppose, that because thou didst seem so indifferent to my birth, and so careless as to my early teaching, therefore thou wert, at heart, indifferent to thy troublesome Neogilos. As I grew older, I became more sensibly aware that a father’s eye was upon me. I distinctly remember one incident, that seems to me, in looking back, a crisis in my infant life, as the first tangible link between my own heart and that calm great soul. My father was seated on the lawn before the house, his straw hat over his eyes (it was summer) and his book on his lap. Suddenly a beautiful delf blue-and-white flower-pot, which had been set on the window-sill of an upper storey, fell to the ground with a crash, and the fragments spluttered up round my father’s legs. Sublime in his studies as Archimedes in the siege, he continued to read “_Impavidum feriunt ruinæ!_” “Dear, dear!” cried my mother, who was at work in the porch, “my poor flower-pot that I prized so much! Who could have done this? Primmins, Primmins!” Mrs Primmins popped her head out of the fatal window, nodded to the summons, and came down in a trice, pale and breathless. “Oh!” said my mother, mournfully, “I would rather have lost all the plants in the greenhouse in the great blight last May,—I would rather the best tea-set were broken! The poor geranium I reared myself, and the dear, dear flower-pot which Mr Caxton bought for me my last birth-day! That naughty child must have done this!” Mrs Primmins was dreadfully afraid of my father—why, I know not, except that very talkative social persons are usually afraid of very silent shy ones. She cast a hasty glance at her master, who was beginning to evince signs of attention, and cried promptly, “No, ma’am, it was not the dear boy, bless his flesh, it was I!” “You! how could you be so careless? and you knew how I prized them both. Oh, Primmins!” Primmins began to sob. “Don’t tell fibs, nursey,” said a small shrill voice; and Master Sisty (coming out of the house as bold as brass) continued rapidly—“don’t scold Primmins, mamma: it was I who pushed out the flower-pot.” “Hush!” said nurse, more frightened than ever, and looking aghast towards my father, who had very deliberately taken off his hat, and was regarding the scene with serious eyes wide awake. “Hush! And if he did break it, ma’am, it was quite an accident; he was standing so, and he never meant it. Did you, Master Sisty? Speak! (this in a whisper) or Pa will be so angry.” “Well,” said my mother, “I suppose it was an accident; take care in future, my child. You are sorry, I see, to have grieved me. There’s a kiss, don’t fret.” “No, mamma, you must not kiss me, I don’t deserve it. I pushed out the flower-pot on purpose.” “Ha! and why?” said my father, walking up. Mrs Primmins trembled like a leaf.