e child! I bear him no ill
will, on the contrary, all love and affection; but I cannot shut my eyes;
there is something so strange about him! How he behaved in Ireland! I
sent him to school to learn Greek, and he picked up Irish!'

'And Greek as well,' said my mother. 'I heard him say the other day that
he could read St. John in the original tongue.'

'You will find excuses for him, I know,' said my father. 'You tell me I
am always talking of my first-born; I might retort by saying you are
always thinking of the other: but it is the way of women always to side
with the second-born. There's what's her name in the Bible, by whose
wiles the old blind man was induced to give to his second son the
blessing which was the birthright of the other. I wish I had been in his
place! I should not have been so easily deceived! no disguise would ever
have caused me to mistake an impostor for my first-born. Though I must
say for this boy that he is nothing like Jacob; he is neither smooth nor
sleek, and, though my second-born, is already taller and larger than his
brother.'

'Just so,' said my mother; 'his brother would make a far better Jacob
than he.'

'I will hear nothing against my first-born,' said my father, 'even in the
way of insinuation: he is my joy and pride; the very image of myself in
my youthful days, long before I fought Big Ben; though perhaps not quite
so tall or strong built. As for the other, God bless the child! I love
him, I'm sure; but I must be blind not to see the difference between him
and his brother. Why, he has neither my hair nor my eyes; and then his
countenance! why, 'tis absolutely swarthy, God forgive me! I had almost
said like that of a gypsy, but I have nothing to say against that; the
boy is not to be blamed for the colour of his face, nor for his hair and
eyes; but, then, his ways and manners!--I confess I do not like them, and
that they give me no little uneasiness--I know that he kept very strange
company when he was in Ireland; people of evil report, of whom terrible
things were said--horse-witches and the like. I questioned him once or
twice upon the matter, and even threatened him, but it was of no use; he
put on a look as if he did not understand me, a regular Irish look, just
such a one as those rascals assume when they wish to appear all innocence
and simplicity, and they full of malice and deceit all the time. I don't
like them; they are no friends to old England, or its o