nd as to _himself_, he did not appear to know there was such a person
existing: his whole faculties were absorbed in _others_.

The dean's reception of him did honour to his sensibility and his
gratitude to his brother. After the first affectionate gaze, he ran to
him, took him in his arms, sat down, drew him to him, held him between
his knees, and repeatedly exclaimed, "I will repay to you all I owe to
your father."

The boy, in return, hugged the dean round the neck, kissed him, and
exclaimed,

"Oh! you _are_ my father--you have just such eyes, and such a
forehead--indeed you would be almost the same as he, if it were not for
that great white thing which grows upon your head!"

Let the reader understand, that the dean, fondly attached to every
ornament of his dignified function, was never seen (unless caught in bed)
without an enormous wig. With this young Henry was enormously struck;
having never seen so unbecoming a decoration, either in the savage island
from whence he came, or on board the vessel in which he sailed.

"Do you imagine," cried his uncle, laying his hand gently on the reverend
habiliment, "that this grows?"

"What is on _my_ head grows," said young Henry, "and so does that which
is upon my father's."

"But now you are come to Europe, Henry, you will see many persons with
such things as these, which they put on and take off."

"Why do you wear such things?"

"As a distinction between us and inferior people: they are worn to give
an importance to the wearer."

"That's just as the savages do; they hang brass nails, wire, buttons, and
entrails of beasts all over them, to give them importance."

The dean now led his nephew to Lady Clementina, and told him, "She was
his aunt, to whom he must behave with the utmost respect."

"I will, I will," he replied, "for she, I see, is a person of importance
too; she has, very nearly, such a white thing upon her head as you have!"

His aunt had not yet fixed in what manner it would be advisable to
behave; whether with intimidating grandeur, or with amiable tenderness.
While she was hesitating between both, she felt a kind of jealous
apprehension that her son was not so engaging either in his person or
address as his cousin; and therefore she said,

"I hope, Dean, the arrival of this child will give you a still higher
sense of the happiness we enjoy in our own. What an instructive contrast
between the manners of the one and of the other!"

"It is no