I have often been taunted, by people who know nothing (multiplied into a million fibs) about me, that my mind is as volatile as my body, and goes about, in an unsettled manner, for want of the leaden belt, which motherly care so long kept round my stomach. It is equally needless, and useless, to present reason to such irrationals; and I try to be proud, in my loftier moments, of affording them amusement, which amuses me. But, to reasonable persons, who can hearken to a thing, and take it into common sense, and weigh it--whenever it concerns their own affairs enough--to these (if any) I would simply say, "follow my own history of my own acts, and judge, by my own account, of what nobody else can know so well." And any one, proceeding upon this fair principle, will find more to approve than to condemn in me, however much I may tell against myself. Hoping that fair-play will prevail--as it generally does in the end--I confess, that at this very tender age of fifteen, I proved for the rest of my holidays, untrue to the image of Polly Windsor. Polly was not there; and even if she had been, how would she have looked, I should like to know, by the side of Laura Twentifold? She was double her size, that is certain at the least; but in quality, oh what a difference! And yet again, manners, and the fear of what I might say greatly against my own interest, enable me to speak in a chastened style; and to do that, I had better leave Polly still absent. On the very day after Professor Megalow returned to his duties in London, my dear lady comforted her mind, by returning to the place still full of him. You must understand, that the Professor had never been actually staying at the Towers; because, without any other fullgrown gentleman dwelling in the house, it might have looked amiss. So he had his own camping place at Crowton-on-the-Naze, which is ten miles further up the coast than the rising watering-place, called Happystowe. Yet there had not been many days, when he failed to put himself into spruce attire--so far as his nature permitted--and to dine, and make a pleasant evening, with my lady, and her gallant son, Sir Roland. And when he was gone, it could not be helped, that the evenings should grow long, and dull. It must have been August, and about the middle of it (according to our holidays, which were sadly near their end), when my dear Lady walked down the sands, to talk to an ancient fisherman, about keeping the relics of the whale upright. Roly was gone, with the Keeper, inland, to see about exercising some young dogs, in preparation for the shooting-time; and the lovely little lady, and myself, were left, to look for pretty shells, and to amuse each other. And I never grew tired of obeying her commands; so sweet was her voice, and so gentle were her eyes.