In the fullness of his self-sufficiency, he declared that "he put no stress upon ornamental accomplishments, provided that his sons were on the high road to become useful members of society." By useful Mr. Sinclair meant wealthy; he considered himself eminently useful. He gave employment to a number of individuals, and regarded himself as a philanthropist upon a large scale. It was the utmost of this gentleman's ambition that his sons should resemble himself; he desired not that they should be one degree better, and did not well see how they could be. He was the very incarnation of self-complacency; he had not himself been "drilled into the kick-shaws of a classical education. He had done well enough without Latin, and why should not his sons do the same? He did not intend them for school-masters, or parsons either, for the matter of that. Thank God, he could provide for them more respectably.— Education was a good enough thing for people obliged to live by their wits; for his part, he had never felt the want of it; he had got on much better than his neighbours, and was very well to do in the world." And thus reasoning with himself, he set the seal upon the ruin of his sons. Admirable Mr. Sinclair! Thou wouldst have made brutes of us all.

Mr. Sinclair, like most other people, did one

sensible thing in his life. He married a sensible woman, and astonished the whole county. Everybody marvelled at the match: they marvelled from two separate causes; firstly, that the ignorant Mr. Sinclair should have proposed to the accomplished Miss Kenyon; and secondly, that the accomplished Miss Kenyon should have accepted the ignorant Mr. Sinclair. But Miss Kenyon's parents were poor, and Miss Kenyon herself was obedient. A young lady cannot always marry the person she likes best.

Besides, she was of a charitable nature, and did not think so badly, as others did, of the gentleman who was destined to be her husband. He had many good qualities of heart, though he was rough in his manners and sometimes savage in his behaviour. Allowances must be made: he had been improperly educated; he had not received the same advantages as other men. His mind was unstored, but it was not deficient in capacity. He might improve. Then vanity stepped in and mounted upon the shoulders of charity. She might correct him; he was prejudiced against learning, and altogether unambitious of improvement, but her example and her persuasions, might convert him. There were many instances on record of a good wife being the salvation of a bad husband. She was rather pleased when she reflected upon this; she would regene

rate Mr. Sinclair; she would cultivate his intellect; she would mould him to her will; she did not despair of his redemption.

All this would have been well enough if the event had in any way accorded with the anticipations of this amiable casuist. But it was not so: Miss Kenyon and Mrs. Sinclair were two very different people. She had altogether miscalculated her strength; the husband was obstinately phlegmatic, though the lover had been docile as a child.

They were married; a son was born unto them, an heir to the Sinclair estates. He was a giant, a young Titan, and Mr. Sinclair was proud of the monster. As the boy grew up, he exhibited, fortunately for himself, a remarkable passion for all agricultural affairs. He did not cultivate his mind, but he cultivated the paternal estate. He was a prodigy of strength, an infant Hercules, and Mr. Sinclair clave to the boy. Happy father, indeed, to be blessed with such an excellent son!

A second boy was born unto them, Everard,— delicate in body but vigorous in mind, the darling of his mother, the aversion of Mr. Sinclair, the very antipodes of his elder brother, Charles. His intellect was rapid in its development; it expanded like a beautiful flower, cherished by water

from the fountain of a mother's inexhaustible love.

He advanced in years; he ceased to be a child; but still he was the good genius of the house. was the gentlest, the kindest, the most forgiving of God's creatures. He was full of patience, fortitude, and love. Do what you would to him you could not offend him. He had no thought for himself; he would have kissed the hand that smote him, and blessed the most bitter of his enemies.

He

But upon Mr. Sinclair, all these endearing qualities were unfortunately entirely thrown away. This worthy man regarded poor Everard, to use his own expression, as a "born natural." The gentleness of the child's disposition was particularly offensive to Mr. Sinclair. His endurance was called

want of spirit;" his kindness was "nothing but hypocrisy ;" his charity and affection were “sickly sentimentalities;" his desire of knowledge and his consequent studiousness were interpreted into physical indolence. "In short," said Mr. Sinclair, "I disown him; he is no son of mine; I detest him. He will disgrace both himself and his family; he has not a day's work in him; he does not know barley from oats, and says that Virgil was a farmer. He is fit for nothing but a poor scholar. His milky face and his soft speeches turn me sick.

He has never said 'd-n me,' in his life. We shall be able to make nothing of the thing,”—and Mr. Sinclair looked ineffably disgusted.

But Everard, thing as he was, waxed daily in genius and kindliness. His was not a fair-weather temper. Neither light breezes nor rough winds could ruffle the waters of his serenity. His father kicked him and called him a natural; his brother thumped him, and called him a girl; but his mother kissed him, and said, "my beloved," and Everard's sufferings were forgotten in the ecstacy of that maternal embrace.

But what could Mrs. Sinclair do? She wept over the persecution of her son; her heart was rent in pieces, for she was powerless; she remonstrated, but it was all in vain. Her exhortations, full of kindness and submission as they were, brought nothing but the harshest replies. Mr. Sinclair was naturally obdurate; of what avail was it to reason with him? You might as well have argued with an Æthiopian in the polite language of Tuscany. He was to the last degree impatient of contradiction. To oppose him was only to push him forward; it was like throwing a ball against brick-work; it rebounds even past the thrower. What could poor Mrs. Sinclair do? Every attempt that she made to turn the current of her husband's affection upon Everard was met with the most open hostility.