On my arrival I found my mother installed mistress of a splendid mansion, furnished newly from the garrets to the cellars, with a very kind and affectionate husband, and a lovely little girl for her companion in the person of his daughter. Her affection for myself, however, seemed to have increased rather than diminished, and it was easy to perceive that my will was to be her law. Two years before, such a perception would have ruined my disposition for ever, but I had already been some time at a school with, a great many boys older than myself. I had been drilled into some kind of discipline by the masters, and beaten into some knowledge of myself by my elders in the school. I had learned also a habit of scrutinizing my own thoughts and feelings, as well as those of other people, very unusual at that period of life, which has never left me, though I acknowledge that I have but too often been wrong in my conclusions, not only in regard to others, but even respecting myself. If our fellows in society can, for purposes of their own, throw a veil over their actions which we can seldom penetrate, surely vanity, passion, interest, and every other modification of selfishness, can, with art a thousand-fold more specious, still conceal from us the springs and motives of what is passing in our own bosom. It is only long-confirmed habit, dear-bought experience, and strong determination, which can tear away the mask successfully in either case. However, I had a strong sense of what is just and right also, and I was not long in perceiving that my mother not only loved me a great deal better than little Emily Somers--which I should not have objected to, because it seemed natural--but she also contrived to show that partiality in a manner which was not fair towards Emily. What Emily did was seldom right--what Emily said was always nonsense with her stepmother--and many and many a time have I had to fight Emily's battles, and defend Emily's cause, and petition in Emily's behalf, when the dear little creature neither did, nor said, nor desired, any thing but what was right. Emily felt the change, and as yet remembered her own mother sufficiently to weep over that change; but she was of a gay and happy disposition, bearing no malice, forgetting injuries, retentive of kindness, frank, true, and gentle; yet, withal, with a firmness of determination on points where some internal principle of rectitude told her that she should be firm, which contrasted strangely enough with the general mildness and placidity of her character. I could, were I so inclined, write down a thousand examples of this peculiar trait in her character; but as I intend merely to give a sketch of those years, it will be unnecessary. Suffice it, that when Emily had positively pledged herself to do or not to do any particular thing, no one attempted to turn her from it, for we all learned to know that it would be in vain.