"Mrs. Knight stood somewhat in awe of my father. Violence loves to contend with violence; it can only be subdued by gentleness and patience. My father's amiable qualities opposed to her fierce anger, were arrows in the hand of the giant, silently and surely they demolished the bulwarks of pride and hatred behind which she sought to entrench herself. "She was civil to my mother, and though I shrank from the stern, sharp, scowling face, she sometimes condescended to pat my head, and call me a pretty boy. "I had once seen her beat Alice very severely, for having mislaid her bonnet; and I never saw Mrs. Knight without longing to beat her after that. "Cross as she was to other people, she never hindered our happy meetings, and I ought to have felt grateful for that favour. "My father grew so fond of the beautiful child, that he offered to teach her gratis. Mrs. Knight was too proud to accept this at his hands; but she sent the child to school with us, and paid liberally for her education. "We now sat upon the same form, learned from the same books, shared in the same amusements, and had but one heart between us. "Childhood lives in the present, it remembers little of the past, and the future stretches before it like a summer sea, bounded by the heavens and bright with sunbeams. The morrow will be fair as to-day, it never anticipates a storm, or thinks of the possibility of change. Alice and I were always to live together, the idea of separation found no place in our thoughts. "Time rolled on, I had just completed my fifteenth year, when it pleased God to remove my dear father--a blow so sudden, so unexpected, that for a long time my poor mother and I were plunged into the deepest sorrow. "He was a good man. I loved him without fear, entertaining for him the most profound respect and veneration; and feeling the fullest confidence in his attachment to me. "This was my first grief, and if Alice had not been always near me to wipe away my tears, and inspire fresh hope into my fainting heart, I hardly think I should have survived the shock, and, for some months after the occurrence of the sad event, was threatened with consumption. "My mother struggled bravely with her sorrow, for my sake. Our means always limited, became doubly so now. It was perhaps a mercy that we were called upon to work; not allowed to sit idle, and waste the precious time in unavailing regrets. Action is the best antidote for grief, occupation deadens suffering by forcibly detaching the mind to pursue other objects, which gives birth to new hopes as a necessary consequence. "My mother opened a school for young ladies, and worked hard at her new vocation. "An uncle, who was in a large wholesale business in London, exerted his influence to get me into Christ Church School, and was successful. "Then came the parting with my mother, and dare I say it, worse still, my separation from Alice.