of necessity adorn the succeeding pages of this manuscript, should
observe a guarded discretion in drawing on the credulity of his
readers, truth compels me to add, that every farthing of the money
was duly invested with a single eye to the wishes of the dying
Christian, who, under Providence, had been the means of bestowing so
much gold on the poor and unlettered. As to the manner in which the
charity was finally improved, I shall say nothing, since no inquiry
on my part has ever enabled me to obtain such information as would
justify my speaking with authority.

As for myself, I shall have little more to add touching the events
of the succeeding twenty years. I was baptized, nursed, breeched,
schooled, horsed, confirmed, sent to the university, and graduated,
much as befalls all gentlemen of the established church in the
united kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, or, in other words, of
the land of my ancestor. During these pregnant years, Dr.
Etherington acquitted himself of a duty that, judging by a very
predominant feeling of human nature (which, singularly enough,
renders us uniformly averse to being troubled with other people's
affairs), I think he must have found sufficiently vexatious, quite
as well as my good mother had any right to expect. Most of my
vacations were spent at his rectory; for he had first married, then
become a father, next a widower, and had exchanged his town living
for one in the country, between the periods of my mother's death and
that on my going to Eton; and, after I quitted Oxford, much more of
my time was passed beneath his friendly roof than beneath that of my
own parent. Indeed, I saw little of the latter. He paid my bills,
furnished me with pocket-money, and professed an intention to let me
travel after I should reach my majority. But, satisfied with these
proofs of paternal care, he appeared willing to let me pursue my own