'My dear Jane,' said my father to her, after alighting from the back of his hunter, which he had walked, trotted, and galloped, to convince her how perfect he was in all his paces, 'My dear Jane, we have an excellent farm; the land is in good condition, the fences sound, and the soil rich: no man in this county understands seeding, cropping, and marketing better than I do: we shall improve our stock and double our rent' (it was a hundred and fifty pounds per annum) 'the first year. I shall soon meet with a smart nag, fit for the side saddle, and shall easily make you a good horse woman; and then, when the seed is in the ground, we may be allowed to take a little pleasure. Perhaps we may ride by the rector's door, and if he should not ask us in we will not break our hearts. Who knows but, in time, we may have cause to be as purse proud as himself?' My father, as it appears, was sanguine, high spirited, and not without resentment. My mother, though her fancy was not quite so active, did not think his reasoning much amiss; and recollected the jaunts they were to take between seed time and harvest with complacency. CHAPTER II _Progress of my education, and conjectures on its consequences_ Bold in his projects, lucky in his bargains, and fertile in resources, every thing, for a time, which my father undertook, seemed to prosper. In the interim, I grew apace; and, according to the old phrase, was my father's pride and my mother's joy. His free humour, and the delight she took in exhibiting her boy, had occasioned me, in early infancy, to be handed from arm to arm, and so familiarized to a variety of countenances, as soon to be entirely exempted from the usual fears of children. My father's bargains and sales brought me continually acquainted with strange faces. He was vain of me, fond of having me with him, and, as he called it, of case-hardening me. I became full of prattle, inquisitive, had an incessant flow of spirits, and often put interrogatories so whimsical, or so uncommon, as to make myself remarkably amusing.