home, on the same blessed day, to make the house ring with another
sort of eloquence than that to which she had listened with such
sanctimonious devotion from the lips of the preacher. There were
some other little offsets against the perfectly evangelical character
of their religion. One of these--the first that attracted my infant
consideration--was naturally one which more directly concerned
myself. I soon discovered that, while I was sent to an ordinary
charity school of the country, in threadbare breeches, made of the
meanest material--their own son--a gentle and good, but puny boy,
whom their indulgence injured, and, perhaps, finally destroyed--was
despatched to a fashionable institution which taught all sorts of
ologies--dressed in such choice broadcloth and costly habiliments,
as to make him an object of envy and even odium among all his less
fortunate school-fellows.

Poor little Edgar! His own good heart and correct natural understanding
showed him the equal folly of that treatment to which he was
subjected, and the injustice and unkindness which distinguished
mine. He strove to make amends, so far as I was concerned, for the
error of his parents. He was my playmate whenever he was permitted,
but even this permission was qualified by some remark, some direction
or counsel, from one or other of his parents, which was intended
to let him know, and make me feel, that there was a monstrous
difference between us.

The servants discovered this difference as quickly as did the
objects of it; and though we were precisely of one age, and I was
rather the largest of the two, yet, in addressing us, they paid
him the deference which should only be shown to superior age, and
treated me with the contumely only due to inferior merit. It was