She has a great deal of wit, and I am sure you thought so, for you talked a great deal to her. And to very little purpose it should seem. She did not like Sir Owen to correct her child. Then she should have taken the trouble out of his hands, for the boy deserved correction, and I am afraid will shortly become incorrigible. Here the alternation paused, and Cecilia, turning to her father, said--What is it in the countenance of that boy, which, when I look upon him, causes me to shudder? It is, said the father, because you read his character in his features, and are persuaded, that the child, who sets out by tormenting a poor helpless dog, will in time grow up to be the tormentor of a poor helpless man. I own there is something in the boy repulsive to my nature. He has fine eyes, said Philip. They are indications of his mind, and give fair warning, replied De Lancaster; so far they may merit what you say of them. I hope, rejoined Cecilia, my dear little nephew in no future time will form acquaintance or connection with him. He never will be cruel I am sure; his little hands already are held out to every living thing he sees, and his sweet smile bespeaks humanity. Yes, and as surely as he lives, my dear, replied De Lancaster, his hands will be held out to all his fellow creatures in distress, or I am a false prophet. As for my friend Sir Owen, I pity him from my heart, poor man. His last words made a strong impression on me. If he submits to keep these plagues about him, I fear he will never know another happy day. Philip’s opinion of Mrs. Owen was not altered, but his fund of conversation was exhausted, so he said no more, and the coach discharged its freight in the port, from which it had set out. As we hold it matter of conscience not to keep our readers any longer in the nursery, we must here avail ourselves of our privilege, and pass very slightly over a period of our hero’s life, which does not furnish us with matter sufficiently interesting to be recorded in these memoirs. As we profess to give the history of the human mind, we trust it will be allowed us to present our John De Lancaster to the reader as a boy, whose thoughts and actions were no longer merely neutral, but such as might naturally lead to the developement of that character, which he was destined to exhibit in his more advanced maturity. For the present we shall content ourselves with observing that, although the age, when education ought to have begun, was now gone by, still the question of what species that education should be, whether public or private, was not decided. Within this period the following letters, under different dates from the West Indies, had reached the hands of Mrs. Philip De Lancaster. “_From Captain Jones--Letter the first._ “Madam,