During the earlier years of his childhood, Master Colin did not display anything uncommon, if I except the extraordinary talent he developed in the consumption of all kinds of edible commodities, whereby, I firmly believe, he laid the foundation of that excellent figure in which he appeared after arriving at the age of manhood. Sometimes, when his mother was in a mood prospective and reflective, she would look upon him with grief, and almost wish him appetiteless; but Colin stared defiance in her face as he filled his mouth with potatoes, and drank up as much milk as would have served a fatting calf. Reinstated in the habitation where Colin was born, his mother eventually established a little shop, containing nearly everything, in a small way, that the inhabitants of such a locality could require. A bag of flour, a tub of oatmeal, and half a barrel of red herrings, stood for show directly opposite the door. A couple of cheeses, and a keg of butter, adorned the diminutive counter. Candles, long and short, thick and thin, dangled from the ceiling; half a dozen long brushes and mops stood sentry in one corner; and in and about the window was displayed a varied collection of pipes, penny loaves, tobacco, battledores, squares of pictures twenty-four for a halfpenny, cotton-balls, whipcord, and red worsted nightcaps. In this varied storehouse, with poor pale little Fanny for his nurse, until he grew too big for her any longer to carry him, did our hero Colin live and thrive. After he had found his own legs, his nurse became his companion; and many a time, as he grew older,--pitying her hungry looks, and solemn-looking eyes,--has he stolen out with half his own meals in his pinafore, on purpose to give them unseen to her who, he thought, wanted them more than he. But in time the little shop was to be minded, and Fanny had grown up enough to attend to it. Colin missed his companion in the fields, and therefore he too stayed more at home; and never felt more happy than when,--his mother's daily lessons being ended,--he hurried into the shop, and found something that he could do to help Fanny in her service.