the rough school to which I was sent. If eyes were likely to be lost
in the campus, corded balls of India-rubber, or still harder ones
of wood, impelled by shinny (goff) sticks, would have obliterated
all of mine though they had been numerous as those of Argus. My
limbs and eyes escaped all injury; my frame grew tall and vigorous
in consequence of neglect, even as the forest-tree, left to the
conflict of all the winds of heaven; while my poor little friend,
Edgar, grew daily more and more diminutive, just as some plant,
which nursing and tendance within doors deprive of the wholesome
sunshine and generous breezes of the sky. The paleness of his cheek
increased, the languor of his frame, the meagerness of his form,
the inability of his nature! He was pining rapidly away, in spite
of that excessive care, which, perhaps, had been in the first
instance, the unhappy source of all his feebleness.

He died--and I became an object of greater dislike than ever
to his parents. They could not but contrast my strength, with his
feebleness--my improvement with his decline--and when they remembered
how little had been their regard for me and how much for him--without
ascribing the difference of result to the true cause--they repined
at the ways of Providence, and threw upon me the reproach of it.
They gave me less heed and fewer smiles than ever. If I improved
at school, it was well, perhaps; but they never inquired, and I
could not help fancying that it was with a positive expression of
vexation, that my aunt heard, on one occasion, from my teacher, in
the presence of some guests, that I was likely to be an honor to
the family.

"An honor to the family, indeed!" This was the clear expression in
that Christian lady's eyes, as I saw them sink immediately after