and quilted counterpanes, over which she regaled herself with hymns, sung in a most sleep-inviting key to adagio movements, that scarce moved at all. This work of hers, like that of the chaste Penelope, was without end or object; for it rarely failed to happen that, before the task was finished, Mrs. De Lancaster had changed her fancy as to the pattern, and destroyed perhaps in a few minutes what patient Betty had been employed upon for months: her carpets never covered the floor, nor did her counterpanes ever ornament the beds. As Mr. Philip De Lancaster had no further punctilios to observe towards his lady, he seemed to think that nothing more could be required of him towards his son except to measure his growth from year to year by notches in the wainscot of the steward’s parlour, which are there remaining to this hour as records of the extraordinary vegetative powers, with which dame Nature had endowed the object of these memoirs. Cecilia would fain have had her little nephew brought into the room after dinner, but it was not often she was indulged in that wish, as the old gentleman did not approve of the custom; and once, when the good aunt was rather more importunate than was usual with her, he told her, that the practice of introducing noisy children and prattling nurses into the guest-room was so justly reprobated by all civilized societies, that the citizens of Abydos became notorious to a proverb for their ill manners in that particular, and were the laughing-stock of the more refined Athenians--And should not you and I, said he, like the aforesaid citizens, deserve to be the ridicule of our neighbours, if, instead of entertaining them with the conversation of the table, we should treat them with the din and gabble of a nursery?--From these, or any other authorities, when abetted by her father, it was not Cecilia’s practice to appeal, though perhaps she longed to observe to him, that his neighbours were not in all respects exactly like the _refined Athenians_. De Lancaster nevertheless was extremely fond of his grandson, and once in every forenoon had him brought into his library, where he would hear him say the little lessons, that his aunt had taught him, and sometimes with great good humour tell him stories, and repeat fables, which had always some point of instruction couched under the moral of them, upon which however the narrator was in the habit of descanting rather longer than would have answered his purpose, had that been only to amuse the hearer; but as this history does not undertake to record every incident, that occurred during the boyish years of our hero, we shall content ourselves with observing, that, as he advanced in strength and stature, he gave proofs of a very early aptitude towards all athletic exercises within the compass of his powers. He scrambled up the crags, forded the gullies and braved the inclemencies of climate, with any boy of his age, however bold or hardy.