ot much wonder at this, seeing
children are so apt to deem themselves unjustly treated by a second
marriage of their parent; but it was hinted that the boy's jealousy and
discontent were excited by no common cause. The new mother was not much
older than himself, had been a servant of the family, and a criminal
intimacy had subsisted between her, while in that condition, and the
son. Her marriage with his father was justly accounted by their
neighbours a most profligate and odious transaction. The son, perhaps,
had, in such a case, a right to scold, but he ought not to have carried
his anger to such extremes as have been imputed to him. He is said to
have grinned upon her with contempt, and even to have called her
_strumpet_ in the presence of his father and of strangers.

"It was impossible for such a family to keep together. Arthur took leave
one night to possess himself of all his father's cash, mount the best
horse in his meadow, and elope. For a time, no one knew whither he had
gone. At last, one was said to have met with him in the streets of this
city, metamorphosed from a rustic lad into a fine gentleman. Nothing
could be quicker than this change, for he left the country on a Saturday
morning, and was seen in a French frock and silk stockings, going into
Christ's Church the next day. I suppose he kept it up with a high hand,
as long as his money lasted.

"My lather paid us a visit last week, and, among other country-news,
told us that Sawny Mervyn had sold his place. His wife had persuaded him
to try his fortune in the Western country. The price of his hundred
acres here would purchase a thousand there, and the man, being very
gross and ignorant, and, withal, quite a simpleton, found no difficulty
in perceiving that a thousand are ten times more than a hundred. He was
not aware that a rood of ground upon Schuylkill is tenfold better than
an acre on the Tennessee.

"The woman turned out to be an artful profligate. Having sold his ground
and gotten his money, he placed it in her keeping, and she, to enjoy it
with the more security, ran away to the city; leaving him to prosecute
his journey to Kentucky moneyless and alone. Some time after, Mr.
Althorpe and I were at the play, when he pointed out to me a group of
females in an upper box, one of whom was no other than Betty Lawrence.
It was not easy to recognise, in her present gaudy trim, all flaunting
with ribbons and shining with trinkets, the same Betty who used