“Very!” observed the baronet; “I wonder if she is come-at-able?” “How can you wonder at any such thing, my dear Sir John?” quoth the improvement-loving squire: “the girl’s as poor as a rat, and has lately lost her father. It would really be a charity, my dear Sir John, if you were to call and comfort her. Improvement, Sir John, is my motto, and I fancy this poor girl’s state is very capable of _improvement_.” The latter part of this _amiable_ suggestion, given with a significant leer, was perfectly well understood. The amorous baronet amply availed himself of the _honorable_ squire’s hint, and called several successive evenings at Llidiard-y-Fynnon; but some doubts may be entertained of the _improvements_ he introduced there. The sequel of the adventure soon grew notorious, and the maiden Catti became the mother of our redoubted hero, thence, with an allusion to his father, named Twm Shon Catti. CHAP. III. Early indications of Twm’s antiquarian propensities. His mother becomes the very paragon of schoolmistresses. The originality of her system. Twm becomes her pupil. AS the period of early infancy rarely contains incidents worthy of the recording pen of history, we shall bring our hero at once to his fourth year. The biographers of great men have generally evinced a predilection to present their readers with certain early indications of the peculiar genius that has distinguished their heroes in after life; and far from us be the presumption of deviating from such a popular and legitimate rule, by any radical attempt at innovation or improvement. Pope’s lispings in numbers, West’s quaker daubings in childhood, with many such instances, not to mention Peter Pindar’s waggery on Sir Joseph Banks’s spreading spiders on his bread and butter, are cases in point, which are familiar to every reader; and it will not appear strange to those already acquainted with his fame, that we have to add to these eminent names that of our long-neglected hero. It is true he became neither a poet, a painter, nor a natural historian, but, according to the unbiassed opinions of geniuses of the same caste with himself, who could not be suspected of either egotism or partiality, a superior character to either—an eminent antiquary—to which may be added, though perhaps it ought to take the lead—a no less eminent thief. Such is the prejudice of these degenerate times that the latter designation has grown unpopular; but according to _Bardolph’s_ hint, it might be profitably exchanged, on the score of respectability, to “conveyancer:”— “Steal! a fico for the phrase! The wise call it convey.”