It is no wonder that I was always in a hurry, for I must have had an instinctive idea that I had my fortune to look for. The governor had nothing more than a genteel independence, and this would be a good deal lessened after his death by the lapse of an annuity. But sister Laura was thus provided for well enough, while I had not a shilling in actual money, although plenty of hypothetical thousands and sundry castles in the air. It was the consciousness of the latter kind of property, no doubt, that gave me so free-and-easy an air, and made me so completely the master of my own actions. How I did worry that blessed old woman! how Laura lectured and scolded! how the governor stormed! and how I was forgiven the next minute, and we were all as happy again as the day was long! But at length the time of separation came. I had grown a great hulking fellow, strong enough to make my bread as a porter if that had been needed; and so a situation was found for me in a counting-house at Barcelona, and after a lecture and a hearty cry from sister Laura, a blessing and a kiss from mamma, and a great sob kept down by a hurricane laugh from the governor, I went adrift. Four years passed rapidly away. I had attained my full height, and more than my just share of inches. I already enjoyed a fair modicum of whisker, and had even made some progress in the cultivation of a pair of moustaches, when suddenly the house I was connected with failed. What to do? The governor insisted upon my return to England, where his interest among the mercantile class was considerable; Laura hinted mysteriously that my presence in the house would soon be a matter of great importance to her father; and mamma let out the secret, by writing to me that Laura was going to 'change her condition.' I was glad to hear this, for I knew he would be a model of a fellow who was Laura's husband; and, gulping down my pride, which would fain have persuaded me that it was unmanly to go back again like the ill sixpence, I set out on my return home.