d warmth, 'I cannot do better than follow in
my father's steps; yes, I will be a tradesman.' My uncles did not
remonstrate; they and I parted with mutual disgust. In reviewing this
transaction, I find that I was quite right to shake off the burden of
Tynedale's patronage, but a fool to offer my shoulders instantly for the
reception of another burden--one which might be more intolerable, and
which certainly was yet untried.

"I wrote instantly to Edward--you know Edward--my only brother, ten
years my senior, married to a rich mill-owner's daughter, and now
possessor of the mill and business which was my father's before
he failed. You are aware that my father-once reckoned a Croesus of
wealth--became bankrupt a short time previous to his death, and that my
mother lived in destitution for some six months after him, unhelped by
her aristocratical brothers, whom she had mortally offended by her union
with Crimsworth, the----shire manufacturer. At the end of the six months
she brought me into the world, and then herself left it without, I
should think, much regret, as it contained little hope or comfort for
her.

"My father's relations took charge of Edward, as they did of me, till I
was nine years old. At that period it chanced that the representation of
an important borough in our county fell vacant; Mr. Seacombe stood for
it. My uncle Crimsworth, an astute mercantile man, took the opportunity
of writing a fierce letter to the candidate, stating that if he and Lord
Tynedale did not consent to do something towards the support of their
sister's orphan children, he would expose their relentless and malignant
conduct towards that sister, and do his best to turn the circumstances
against Mr. Seacombe's election. That gentleman and Lord T. knew well
enough that the Crimsworths were an unscrupulous and determined race;
they knew also that they had influence in the borough of X----; and,
making a virtue of necessity, they consented to defray the expenses of
my education. I was sent to Eton, where I remained ten years, during
which space of time Edward and I never met. He, when he grew up, entered
into trade, and pursued his calling with such diligence, ability, and
success, that now, in his thirtieth year, he was fast making a fortune.
Of this I was apprised by the occasional short letters I received from
him, some three or four times a year; which said letters never concluded
without some expression of determined enmity against t