e
holidays.

"I hope," said my mother, "that they are doing Sisty justice. I do think
he is not nearly so quick a child as he was before he went to school. I
wish you would examine him, Austin."

"I have examined him, my dear. It is just as I expected; and I am quite
satisfied."

"What! you really think he has come on?" said my mother, joyfully.

"He does not care a button for botany now," said Mr. Squills.

"And he used to be so fond of music, dear boy!" observed my mother, with
a sigh. "Good gracious, what noise is that?"

"Your son's pop-gun against the window," said my father. "It is lucky it
is only the window; it would have made a less deafening noise, though,
if it had been Mr. Squills's head, as it was yesterday morning."

"The left ear," observed Squills; "and a very sharp blow it was too. Yet
you are satisfied, Mr. Caxton?"

"Yes; I think the boy is now as great a blockhead as most boys of his
age are," observed my father with great complacency.

"Dear me, Austin,--a great blockhead?"

"What else did he go to school for?" asked my father.

And observing a certain dismay in the face of his female audience, and
a certain surprise in that of his male, he rose and stood on the
hearth, with one hand in his waistcoat, as was his wont when about to
philosophize in more detail than was usual to him.

"Mr. Squills," said he, "you have had great experience in families."

"As good a practice as any in the county," said Mr. Squills, proudly;
"more than I can manage. I shall advertise for a partner."

"And," resumed my father, "you must have observed almost invariably that
in every family there is what father, mother, uncle, and aunt pronounce
to be one wonderful child."

"One at least," said Mr. Squills, smiling.

"It is easy," continued my father, "to say this is parental partiality;
but it is not so. Examine that child as a stranger, and it will
startle yourself. You stand amazed at its eager curiosity, its quick
comprehension, its ready wit, its delicate perception. Often, too, you
will find some faculty strikingly developed. The child will have a turn
for mechanics, perhaps, and make you a model of a steamboat; or it will
have an ear tuned to verse, and will write you a poem like that it
has got by heart from 'The Speaker;' or it will take to botany (like
Pisistratus), with the old maid its aunt; or it will play a march on its
sister's pianoforte. In short, even you, Squills, will declare that it
i