"Not all, Harry! though that is a great deal; you must write to me often, and tell me what makes you happy or unhappy, for I shall be more interested than ever, now that we are separated. Tell me everything about my school-fellows, too, and about Laura. There is no corner of the wide world where I shall not think of you both every day, and feel anxious about the very least thing that concerns you." "My dear boys!" said Major Graham, who had joined them some moments before, "it is fortunate that you have both lived always in the same home, for that will make you love each other affectionately as long as you live. In England, children of one family are all scattered to different schools, without any one to care whether they are attached or not, therefore their earliest and warmest friendships are formed with strangers of the same age, whom they perhaps never see again, after leaving school. In that case, brothers have no happy days of childhood to talk over in future life, as you both have,--no little scrapes to remember, that they got into together--no pleasures enjoyed at the same moment to smile at the recollection of, and no friction of their tempers in youth, such as makes every thing go on smoothly between brothers when they grow older; therefore, when at last grown up and thrown together, they scarcely feel more mutual friendship and intimacy than any other gentlemen testify towards each other." "I dare say that is very true," said Frank. "Tom Brownlow tells me when his three brothers come home from Eton, Harrow, and Durham, they quarrel so excessively, that sometimes no two of them are on speaking terms." "Not at all improbable," observed Major Graham. "In every thing we see how much better God's arrangements are than our own. Families were intended to be like a little world in themselves--old people to govern the young ones--young people to make their elders cheerful--grown-up brothers and sisters to show their juniors a good example--and children to be playthings and companions to their seniors, but that is all at an end in the present system." "Old Andrew says that large families 'squander' themselves all over the earth now," said Frank, laughing. "Yes! very young children are thrust into preparatory schools--older boys go to distant academies--youths to College--and young men are shipped off abroad, while who among them all can say his heart is in his own home? Parents in the meantime, finding no occupation or amusement in educating their children, begin writing books, perhaps theories of education, or novels; and try to fill up the rest of their useless hours with plays, operas, concerts, balls, or clubs. If people could only know what is the best happiness of this life, it certainly depends on being loved by those we belong to; for nothing can be called peace on earth, which does not consist in family affection, built upon a strong foundation of religion and morality."