ittle chap, was Mr. Osborne's constant saying regarding little
Georgy. He saw him in his mind's eye, a collegian, a Parliament man, a
Baronet, perhaps. The old man thought he would die contented if he
could see his grandson in a fair way to such honours. He would have
none but a tip-top college man to educate him--none of your quacks and
pretenders--no, no. A few years before, he used to be savage, and
inveigh against all parsons, scholars, and the like declaring that they
were a pack of humbugs, and quacks that weren't fit to get their living
but by grinding Latin and Greek, and a set of supercilious dogs that
pretended to look down upon British merchants and gentlemen, who could
buy up half a hundred of 'em. He would mourn now, in a very solemn
manner, that his own education had been neglected, and repeatedly point
out, in pompous orations to Georgy, the necessity and excellence of
classical acquirements.

When they met at dinner the grandsire used to ask the lad what he had
been reading during the day, and was greatly interested at the report
the boy gave of his own studies, pretending to understand little George
when he spoke regarding them. He made a hundred blunders and showed
his ignorance many a time. It did not increase the respect which the
child had for his senior. A quick brain and a better education
elsewhere showed the boy very soon that his grandsire was a dullard,
and he began accordingly to command him and to look down upon him; for
his previous education, humble and contracted as it had been, had made
a much better gentleman of Georgy than any plans of his grandfather
could make him. He had been brought up by a kind, weak, and tender
woman, who had no pride about anything but about him, and whose heart
was so pure and whose bearing was so meek and humble that she could not
but needs be a true lady. She busied herself in gentle offices and
quiet duties; if she never said brilliant things, she never spoke or
thought unkind ones; guileless and artless, loving and pure, indeed how
could our poor little Amelia be other than a real gentlewoman!

Young Georgy lorded over this soft and yielding nature; and the
contrast of its simplicity and delicacy with the coarse pomposity of
the dull old man with whom he next came in contact made him lord over
the latter too. If he had been a Prince Royal he could not have been
better brought up to think well of himself.

Whilst his mother was yearning after him