received suffered from the lack of supervision, and some of these young people grew up deplorably ignorant, notwithstanding very fair natural abilities. My highly gifted uncle Maurice, for instance--artist, musician, and adept at surgery--capable it seemed of learning anything to which he turned his attention, was yet never able to pen the shortest note without making some mistake in spelling. But he painted and composed, as a mere dilettante it is true, but with very decided talent, and with the same grace and brilliancy that he brought into everything else, whether losing his money to his male friends at cards, or creating havoc among female hearts at the Viennese Court, whither he had been sent at the age of seventeen, and where he soon showed himself proficient in the various accomplishments supposed to be befitting a young man of his rank, very handsome and well-endowed endowed with worldly goods. He was my mother’s idol, and made the little sister his confidant--even of his love affairs--at a very early age! Very early indeed he had begun practising his seductive arts on the other sex, if it be true that at the age of ten, seeing one of his mother’s young maids-of-honour in tears, he sidled up to her in his most caressing, most coaxing way, looking up in her face with all the melting tenderness of which his big blue eyes were capable, and murmuring persuasively:--“Do not cry, Louise; you know I shall always be your friend!” But it was a little later, when the gay handsome youth had really begun to turn female heads, that his confidences to the younger sister must often have assumed a very amusing character. Fräulein Lavater once found her little pupil dissolved in tears, and it was only after reiterated promises of secrecy on the part of the governess, that the child at last sobbed out:--“Maurice is in love--in love! And she whom he loves can never be his, for she is a married woman!” That Fräulein Lavater had some difficulty in restraining her laughter, may be easily imagined; but she succeeded, and had moreover the good sense and good feeling to respect her promise and keep the story of this comic episode to herself, until a time when its being made known could no longer be prejudicial to anyone. She was rewarded for her discretion by being also made the recipient of some of the young man’s confidences--glimpses of the innumerable adventures of which he was the hero in the gay Austrian capital.