Time went on; we were neighbours, and became intimate in the family. I was beloved by Catalina, caressed by her charming mother, and frequently noticed by aunt, whom I very much inclined to love, were it not that it seemed to me as if, in so doing, I should aspire too high. Yet, in my visits to her, where I had now a particular low chair in a corner assigned me, I had great enjoyment of various kinds. First, I met there with all those strangers or inhabitants who were particularly respectable for their character or conversation. Then I was witness to a thousand acts of beneficence that charmed me, I could not well say why, not having learned to analyze my feelings. Then I met with the Spectator and a few other suitable books, which I read over and over with unwearied diligence, not having the least idea of treating a book as a plaything, to be thrown away when the charm of novelty was past. I was by degrees getting into favour with aunt Schuyler, when a new arrival for awhile suspended the growing intimacy. I allude to the colonel of my father’s regiment, who had removed from Crown Point to Albany. The colonel was a married man, whose wife, like himself, had passed her early days in a course of frivolous gaiety. They were now approaching the decline of life, and finding nothing pleasing in the retrospect nor flattering in prospect, time hung on their hands. Where nothing round them was congenial to their habits, they took a fancy to have me frequently with them as matter of amusement. They had had children, and when they died, their mutual affection died with them. They had had a fortune, and when it was spent, all their pleasures were exhausted. They were by this time drawing out the vapid dregs of a tasteless existence, without energy to make themselves feared, or those gentle and amiable qualities which attract love; yet they were not stained with gross vices, and were people of character, as the world goes. What a new world was I entered into! from the quiet simplicity of my home, where I heard nothing but truth, and saw nothing but innocence; and from my good friend’s respectable mansion, where knowledge reflected light upon virtue, and where the hours were too few for their occupation; to be a daily witness of the manner in which these listless ghosts of departed fashion and gaiety drank up the bitter lees of misused time, fortune, and capacity. Never was lesson more impressive; and young as I was, I did not fail to mark the contrast, and draw the obvious inference. From this hopeful school I was set free the following summer (when I had entered on my ninth year) by the colonel’s return to England. They were indeed, kind to me; but the gratitude I could not but feel was a sentiment independent of attachment, and early taught me how difficult it is, nay, how painful, to disjoin esteem from gratitude. ------- CHAP. XLIX.