hich I am speaking, the
stage-coach contained, if not actually a bad character, I a person on
the very verge of being one--that I was that graceless, yet tolerated
being, a scamp, was very certain--yet my gentle demeanour, my smooth,
bright countenance, and never-ceasing placid smile, would have given a
very different impression of my qualities. I have been thus liberal in
my confessions, in order that parents may see that their duties do not
terminate where those of the schoolmaster begin; that the schoolmaster
himself must be taken to task, and the watcher watched. I had been
placed in one of the first boarding-schools near town; a most liberal
stipend had been paid with me; I had every description of master; yet,
after all this outlay of money, which is not dross--and waste of time,
which is beyond price precious, what was I at leaving this academy? Let
the good folks withinside of the Stickenham stage testify; by one trick
or another I had contrived to make them all tolerably uncomfortable
before the journey was half over.

But where am I going? Caesar and his fortunes are embarked in a
stage-coach. An hour and a half had elapsed when I perceived that the
horses were dragging the vehicle slowly up a steep hill. The
full-leaved trees are arching for us, overhead, a verdant canopy; the
air becomes more bracing and elastic: and even I feel its invigorating
influence, and cease to drop slily the gravelly dirt I had collected
from my shoes, down the neck and back of a very pretty girl, who sat
blushing furiously on my left. Now the summit is gained and, in another
moment, the coach thunders down the other side of the hill. But what a
beautiful view is spread before my fascinated eyes! and then rose up in
my young heart the long sleeping emotions of love, and kindred
affection. Into whose arms was I to be received? whose were to be the
beautiful lips that were now longing to kiss me with parental, perhaps
fraternal rapture? Had I a sister? Could I doubt it at that ecstatic
moment? How I would love her! The fatted calf was not only killed, but
cooked, to welcome the long lost. Nor Latin, nor French, nor Greek, nor
Mathematics, should embitter the passing moments. This young summer,
that breathed such aromatic joy around me, had put on its best smile to
welcome me to my paternal abode. "No doubt," said I to myself--"no
doubt, but that some one of the strange stories that I told of myself at
Root's, is going