in respect for a worthy and injured man, and detestation of one
whom he looked upon as a bad character.

"One forenoon, on coming from the High School, he said he wished
to know my opinion as to his conduct in a matter he should state
to me. When passing through the High School Yards, he found a
half-guinea piece on the ground. Instead of appropriating this to
his own use, a sense of honesty led him to look around, and on
doing so he espied a countryman, whom he suspected to be the
proprietor. Having asked the man if he had {p.096} lost
anything, he searched his pockets, and then replied that he had
lost half-a-guinea. Master Walter with pleasure presented him
with his lost treasure. In this transaction, his ingenuity in
finding out the proper owner, and his integrity in restoring the
property, met my most cordial approbation.

"When in church, Master Walter had more of a soporific tendency
than the rest of my young charge. This seemed to be
constitutional. He needed one or other of the family to arouse
him, and from this it might be inferred that he would cut a poor
figure on the Sabbath evening when examined about the sermons.
But what excited the admiration of the family was, that none of
the children, however wakeful, could answer as he did. The only
way that I could account for this was, that when he heard the
text, and divisions of the subject, his good sense, memory, and
genius, supplied the thoughts which would occur to the preacher.

"On one occasion, in the dining-room, when, according to custom,
he was reading some author in the time of relaxation from study,
I asked him how he accounted for the superiority of knowledge he
possessed above the rest of the family. His reply was:--Some
years ago he had been attacked by a swelling in one of his
ankles, which confined him to the house, and prevented him taking
amusement and exercise, and which was the cause of his lameness.
As under this ailment he could not romp with his brothers and the
other young people in the green in George's Square, he found
himself compelled to have recourse to some substitute for the
juvenile amusements of his comrades, and this was reading. So
that, to what he no doubt accounted a painful dispensation of
Providence, he probably stood indebted for his fut