inciples of virtue,
from the casual feelings from which they germinate.

CHAP. VIII.

"I HAVE perhaps dwelt too long on a circumstance, which is only of
importance as it marks the progress of a deception that has been so fatal
to my peace; and introduces to your notice a poor girl, whom, intending
to serve, I led to ruin. Still it is probable that I was not entirely the
victim of mistake; and that your father, gradually fashioned by the
world, did not quickly become what I hesitate to call him--out of respect
to my daughter.

"But, to hasten to the more busy scenes of my life. Mr. Venables and my
mother died the same summer; and, wholly engrossed by my attention to
her, I thought of little else. The neglect of her darling, my brother
Robert, had a violent effect on her weakened mind; for, though boys may
be reckoned the pillars of the house without doors, girls are often the
only comfort within. They but too frequently waste their health and
spirits attending a dying parent, who leaves them in comparative poverty.
After closing, with filial piety, a father's eyes, they are chased from
the paternal roof, to make room for the first-born, the son, who is to
carry the empty family-name down to posterity; though, occupied with his
own pleasures, he scarcely thought of discharging, in the decline of his
parent's life, the debt contracted in his childhood. My mother's conduct
led me to make these reflections. Great as was the fatigue I endured, and
the affection my unceasing solicitude evinced, of which my mother seemed
perfectly sensible, still, when my brother, whom I could hardly persuade
to remain a quarter of an hour in her chamber, was with her alone, a
short time before her death, she gave him a little hoard, which she had
been some years accumulating.

"During my mother's illness, I was obliged to manage my father's temper,
who, from the lingering nature of her malady, began to imagine that it
was merely fancy. At this period, an artful kind of upper servant
attracted my father's attention, and the neighbours made many remarks on
the finery, not honestly got, exhibited at evening service. But I was too
much occupied with my mother to observe any change in her dress or
behaviour, or to listen to the whisper of scandal.

"I shall not dwell on the death-bed scene, lively as is the remembrance,
or on the emotion produced by the last grasp of my mother's cold hand;
when blessing me, she added, 'A little patienc