Little Twm Shôn Catti, being the natural child of Sir John Wynne, was of course the illegitimate nephew of the great lady; a relationship which she, however, disdained to acknowledge: but the cunning curate took the liberty of observing one day, it was a great pity that the slightest drop of the noble blood of the Wynnes, however perverted and polluted, should be suffered to run to waste and be neglected. Proceeding in his drift, he insinuated that if the boy Twm Shôn Catti were removed to his school, he should not only be instructed and improved, but that he, the curate, might thereby learn from the youngster something of his mother’s proceedings; and especially, whether she entertained her lover in the legal, or the proscribed manner. This was striking on the very string that made music to her busy, meddling, troublesome soul;—she of course warmly approved of his idea, and put it into immediate execution. Thus, the very next day, in her own and her brother’s name, little Twm Shôn Catti was ordered for the future to be sent to the curate’s school, which of course, was complied with accordingly. CHAP. VI. Twm improves in the curate’s school. His wit saves him from a flogging. THE great success of Catti’s school excited the ill will of Parson Evans, although he had far more scholars than he could possibly attend to. His indignation at his wife’s fall from her horse into the well, while passing his humble rival’s seminary, together with the humiliating consideration that many of the most juvenile deserted _his_ rule, to submit to _her’s_, wounded this consequential personage to the quick. With an awkward attempt at a smile, he feigned to consider the seceders as a good riddance, and that it was not worth his while to teach babies to walk as well as to instruct them in their letters; this in fact, ought to have been the case, but it was not; for Evans, “like the turk, could bear no rival near the throne.” This new arrangement respecting Twm, they thought could not but be vexatious to Catti, and therefore Mistress Evans felt herself avenged for the tittering that she heard in her school, on her fall into the well as before mentioned. But far different was the case, from what they anticipated, for Catti no sooner heard the order, than in the simple sincerity of her heart, she exclaimed, “Thank God! the boy will learn something from the parson, but I could teach him nothing.”