name I did not like to hear mentioned with a sneer to my very
face. I answered then, with haste and warmth, 'I cannot do
better than follow in my father's steps; yes, I will be a
tradesman.' My uncles did not remonstrate; they and I parted
with mutual disgust. In reviewing this transaction, I find that
I was quite right to shake off the burden of Tynedale's
patronage, but a fool to offer my shoulders instantly for the
reception of another burden--one which might be more intolerable,
and which certainly was yet untried.

"I wrote instantly to Edward--you know Edward--my only brother,
ten years my senior, married to a rich mill-owner's daughter, and
now possessor of the mill and business which was my father's
before he failed. You are aware that my father-once reckoned a
Croesus of wealth--became bankrupt a short time previous to his
death, and that my mother lived in destitution for some six
months after him, unhelped by her aristocratical brothers, whom
she had mortally offended by her union with Crimsworth, the
----shire manufacturer. At the end of the six months she brought
me into the world, and then herself left it without, I should
think, much regret, as it contained little hope or comfort for
her.

"My father's relations took charge of Edward, as they did of me,
till I was nine years old. At that period it chanced that the
representation of an important borough in our county fell vacant;
Mr. Seacombe stood for it. My uncle Crimsworth, an astute
mercantile man, took the opportunity of writing a fierce letter
to the candidate, stating that if he and Lord Tynedale did not
consent to do something towards the support of their sister's