Brown's maiden sister, a gushing lady in corkscrew curls,
who led the revels, whether I also would not indulge them 'by
repeating some sweet stanzas'. No one more ready than I. Without
a moment's hesitation, I stood forth, and in a loud voice I began
one of my favourite passages from Blair's 'Grave':

If death were nothing, and nought after death--
If when men died at once they ceased to be,--
Returning to the barren Womb of Nothing
Whence first they sprung, then might the debauchee...

'Thank you, dear, that will do nicely!' interrupted the lady with
the curls. 'But that's only the beginning of it,' I cried. 'Yes.
dear, but that will quite do! We won't ask you to repeat any more
of it,' and I withdrew to the borders of the company in
bewilderment. Nor did the Browns or their visitors ever learn
what it was the debauchee might have said or done in more
favourable circumstances.

The growing eagerness which I displayed for the society of
selected schoolfellows and for such gentle dissipations as were
within my reach exercised my Father greatly. His fancy rushed
forward with the pace of a steam-engine, and saw me the life and
soul of a gambling club, or flaunting it at the Mabille. He had
no confidence in the action of moderating powers, and he was fond
of repeating that the downward path is easy. If one fretted to be
bathing with one's companions on the shingle, and preferred this
exercise to the study of God's Word, it was a symbol of a
terrible decline, the angle of which would grow steeper and
steeper, until one plunged into perdition. He was, himself, timid
and reclusive, and he shrank from all avoidable companionship
with others, except on the footing of a master and teacher. My
stepmother and I, who neither taught nor ruled, yearned for a
looser chain and lighter relationships. With regard to myself, my
Father about this time hit on a plan from which he hoped much,
but from which little resulted. He looked to George to supply
what my temperament seemed to require of congenial juvenile
companionship.

If I have not mentioned 'George' until now, it is not that he was
a new acquaintance. When we first came down into the country, our
sympathy had been called forth by an accident to a little boy,
who was knocked over by a horse, and whose thigh was broken.
Somebody (I suppose Mary Grace, since my Father could rarely
bring himself to pay these public visits) went to see the child
in the infirmary, and ac