overspread Herbert's countenance, whenever the shrill call of "Come and say your task, Master Herbert!" was heard; and the continual use of the imperative mood--"Let that alone, _do_, Master Herbert!"--"Don't make a racket, Master Herbert!"--"Do hold your tongue and sit still where I bid you, Master Herbert!" operated so powerfully upon this young gentleman, that, at eight years old, he partly fulfilled his tormentor's prophecies, for he became a little surly rebel, who took pleasure in doing exactly the contrary to every thing that he was desired to do, and who took pride in opposing his powers of endurance to the force of punishment. His situation was scarcely more agreeable in the drawing-room than in the nursery, for his mother usually announced him to the company by the appropriate appellation of _Roughhead_; and Herbert _Roughhead_ being assailed, at his entrance into the room, by a variety of petty reproaches and maternal witticisms upon his uncouth appearance, became bashful and awkward, averse from _polite_ society, and prone to the less fastidious company of servants in the stable and the kitchen. Mrs. Harcourt absolutely forbade his intercourse with the postilions, though she did not think it necessary to be so strict in her injunctions as to the butler and footman; because, argued she, "children will get to the servants when one's from home, and it is best that they should be with such of them as one can trust. Now Stephen is quite a person one can entirely depend upon, and he has been so long in the family, the children are quite used to him, and safe with him." How many mothers have a Stephen, on whom they can entirely depend! Mrs. Harcourt, with politeness, which in this instance supplied the place of good sense, invested Mad. de Rosier with full powers, as the preceptress of her children, except as to their religious education; she stipulated that Catholic tenets should not be instilled into them. To this Mad. de Rosier replied--"that children usually follow the religion of their parents, and that proselytes seldom do honour to their conversion; that were she, on the other hand, to attempt to promote her pupils' belief in the religion of their country, her utmost powers could add nothing to the force of public religious instruction, and to the arguments of those books which are necessarily put into the hands of every well-educated person." With these opinions, Mad. de Rosier readily promised to abstain from all direct or indirect interference in the religious instruction of her pupils. Mrs. Harcourt then introduced her to them as "a friend, in whom she had entire confidence, and whom she hoped and believed they would make it their study to please."