Singular! And now there is a
pause, a long pause. Ha! thou hearest something--a footstep; a swift but
heavy footstep! thou risest, thou tremblest, there is a hand on the pin
of the outer door, there is some one in the vestibule, and now the door
of thy apartment opens, there is a reflection on the mirror behind thee,
a travelling hat, a gray head and sunburnt face. My dearest Son! My
darling Mother!

Yes, mother, thou didst recognize in the distant street the hoof-tramp of
the wanderer's horse.

I was not the only child of my parents; I had a brother some three years
older than myself. He was a beautiful child; one of those occasionally
seen in England, and in England alone; a rosy, angelic face, blue eyes,
and light chestnut hair; it was not exactly an Anglo-Saxon countenance,
in which, by the by, there is generally a cast of loutishness and
stupidity; it partook, to a certain extent, of the Celtic character,
particularly in the fire and vivacity which illumined it; his face was
the mirror of his mind; perhaps no disposition more amiable was ever
found amongst the children of Adam, united, however, with no
inconsiderable portion of high and dauntless spirit. So great was his
beauty in infancy that people, especially those of the poorer classes,
would follow the nurse who carried him about in order to look at and
bless his lovely face. At the age of three months an attempt was made to
snatch him from his mother's arms in the streets of London, at the moment
she was about to enter a coach; indeed, his appearance seemed to operate
so powerfully upon every person who beheld him that my parents were under
continual apprehension of losing him; his beauty, however, was perhaps
surpassed by the quickness of his parts. He mastered his letters in a
few hours, and in a day or two could decipher the names of people on the
doors of houses and over the shop-windows.

As he grew up his personal appearance became less prepossessing, his
quickness and cleverness, however, rather increased; and I may say of
him, that with respect to everything which he took in hand he did it
better and more speedily than any other person. Perhaps it will be asked
here, what became of him? Alas! alas! his was an early and a foreign
grave. As I have said before, the race is not always for the swift, nor
the battle for the strong.

And now, doubtless, after the above portrait of my brother, painted in
the very best style of Rubens, the rea