d gowns for
high feast-days; how she used to bring flowers for the altar, and who
could deck it so well as she? But sentiment does not come glibly from
under a grizzled moustache, so I will drop it, if you please.

Amongst other favors she showed me, Mary used to be particularly fond of
kissing me: it was a thing I did not so much value in those days, but I
found that the more I grew alive to the extent of the benefit, the less
she would condescend to confer it on me; till at last, when I was about
fourteen, she discontinued it altogether, of her own wish at least; only
sometimes I used to be rude, and take what she had now become so mighty
unwilling to give.

I was engaged in a contest of this sort one day with Mary, when, just
as I was about to carry off a kiss from her cheek, I was saluted with a
staggering slap on my own, which was bestowed by uncle Edward, and sent
me reeling some yards down the garden.

The old gentleman, whose tongue was generally as close as his purse, now
poured forth a flood of eloquence which quite astonished me. I did not
think that so much was to be said on any subject as he managed to utter
on one, and that was abuse of me; he stamped, he swore, he screamed;
and then, from complimenting me, he turned to Mary, and saluted her in
a manner equally forcible and significant; she, who was very much
frightened at the commencement of the scene, grew very angry at the
coarse words he used, and the wicked motives he imputed to her.

"The child is but fourteen," she said; "he is your own nephew, and a
candidate for holy orders:--father, it is a shame that you should thus
speak of me, your daughter, or of one of his holy profession."

I did not particularly admire this speech myself, but it had an effect
on my uncle, and was the cause of the words with which this history
commences. The old gentleman persuaded his brother that I must be
sent to Strasburg, and there kept until my studies for the church were
concluded. I was furnished with a letter to my uncle's old college chum,
Professor Schneider, who was to instruct me in theology and Greek.

I was not sorry to see Strasburg, of the wonders of which I had heard
so much; but felt very loth as the time drew near when I must quit my
pretty cousin, and my good old uncle. Mary and I managed, however,
a parting walk, in which a number of tender things were said on both
sides. I am told that you Englishmen consider it cowardly to cry; as for
me, I wep