Possibly it might arise from the bitterness of her own reflections upon the evils and the misery resulting from the insincerity and deception so common amongst every class of society, that Mrs. Clink very early and emphatically impressed upon the mind of her boy the necessity of being, above all things, candid and truth-telling, regardless of whatever might be the consequences. Disadvantages, she knew, must accompany so unusual a style of behaviour; but then, she said to herself, “Let him but carry it out through life, and, if no other good come of it but this, it will far outbalance all the rest,--that, by him at least, no other young heart will be destroyed, as mine has been. No lasting misery will by him be entailed on the confiding and the helpless, under the promise of protection: no hope of the best earthly happiness be raised in a weak heart, only to be broken, amidst pain, and degradation, and self-reproach, that has no end except with life. If I can bring up but one such man, thus pure in heart and tongue, I shall die in the full consciousness that, whatever my own errors may have been, I have left behind me one in the world far better than any I have found there!” And so Master Colin was tutored on all occasions to think as correctly as he could, and then to say what he thought, without fear, or hope of favour. While Colin year after year thus continued to advance towards that period when he should finally peck his way through the shell of his childhood, and walk out unfledged into the world, his career did not pass unmarked by that ancient enemy of his mother, Longstaff, the steward. Wherever that worthy went, he was doomed, very frequently, to hear the name of young Master Clink alluded to in terms which, in the inner man of Mr. Longstaff, seemed to throw even the cleverest of his own little Longstaffs at home totally in the rear. Colin was a daring fellow, or a good-hearted fellow, or a comical lad, who promised to turn out something more than common; while Master Chatham Bolinbroke Longstaff, and Miss Æneasina Laxton Longstaff, the most promising pair of the family, were no more talked about, save by himself, Mrs. Longstaff, and the servants, than they would have been had they never honoured society with their presence. The annoyance resulting to Mr. Longstaff from this comparison was rendered more bitter in consequence of the formerly alleged, but now universally disowned, relationship between himself and our hero. He could not endure that the very child whose mother had endeavoured to cast disgrace upon him, and whom he hated on that account with intense hatred, should thus not only, as it were, exalt poverty above riches, but overtop intellectually in their native village as fine a family as any Suffolk grazier could wish to see. Mr. Longstaff determined, at length, to use his utmost exertions in order to rid the village of him; and, the better to effect his object,