f fifteen and Kate attained to fourteen
years, old Mr Kennedy went into his conservatory, locked the door, sat
down on an easy-chair, filled a long clay pipe with his beloved tobacco,
smoked vigorously for ten minutes, and fell fast asleep. In this
condition he remained until the pipe fell from his lips and broke in
fragments on the floor. He then rose, filled another pipe, and sat down
to meditate on the subject that had brought him to his smoking
apartment. "There's my wife," said he, looking at the bowl of his pipe,
as if he were addressing himself to it, "she's getting too old to be
looking after everything herself (_puff_), and Kate's getting too old to
be humbugging any longer with books; besides, she ought to be at home
learning to keep house, and help her mother, and cut the baccy (_puff_),
and that young scamp Charley should be entering the service (_puff_).
He's clever enough now to trade beaver and bears from the red-skins;
besides, he's (_puff_) a young rascal, and I'll be bound does nothing
but lead the other boys into (_puff_) mischief, although, to be sure,
the master _does_ say he's the cleverest fellow in the school; but he
must be reined up a bit now. I'll clap on a double curb and martingale.
I'll get him a situation in the counting-room at the fort (_puff_),
where he'll have his nose held tight to the grindstone. Yes, I'll fix
both their flints to-morrow;" and old Mr Kennedy gave vent to another
puff so thick and long that it seemed as if all the previous puffs had
concealed themselves up to this moment within his capacious chest, and
rushed out at last in one thick and long-continued stream.

By "fixing their flints" Mr Kennedy meant to express the fact that he
intended to place his children in an entirely new sphere of action; and
with a view to this he ordered out his horse and cariole [A sort of
sleigh.] on the following morning, went up to the school, which was
about ten miles distant from his abode, and brought his children home
with him the same evening. Kate was now formally installed as
housekeeper and tobacco-cutter; while Charley was told that his future
destiny was to wield the quill in the service of the Hudson's Bay
Company, and that he might take a week to think over it. Quiet,
warm-hearted, affectionate Kate was overjoyed at the thought of being a
help and comfort to her old father and mother; but reckless, joyous,
good-humoured, hare-brained Charley was cast into the depths of