, poplars, and a few
oaks backed the house, and indeed surrounded it on all sides but the
south; so that it was well sheltered from the winter cold and the summer
heat. Our principal domestic, in dignity and station, was Mrs. Primmins,
who was waiting gentlewoman, housekeeper, and tyrannical dictatrix of
the whole establishment. Two other maids, a gardener, and a footman,
composed the rest of the serving household. Save a few pasture-fields,
which he let, my father was not troubled with land. His income was
derived from the interest of about L15,000, partly in the Three per
Cents, partly on mortgage; and what with my mother and Mrs. Primmins,
this income always yielded enough to satisfy my father's single hobby
for books, pay for my education, and entertain our neighbors, rarely
indeed at dinner, but very often at tea. My dear mother boasted that our
society was very select. It consisted chiefly of the clergyman and his
family; two old maids who gave themselves great airs; a gentleman who
had been in the East India service, and who lived in a large white house
at the top of the hill; some half-a-dozen squires and their wives and
children; Mr. Squills, still a bachelor; and once a year cards were
exchanged--and dinners too--with certain aristocrats who inspired my
mother with a great deal of unnecessary awe, since she declared they
were the most good-natured, easy people in the world, and always stuck
their cards in the most conspicuous part of the looking-glass frame over
the chimney-piece of the best drawing-room. Thus you perceive that our
natural position was one highly creditable to us, proving the soundness
of our finances and the gentility of our pedigree,--of which last more
hereafter. At present I content myself with saying on that head that
even the proudest of the neighboring squirearchs always spoke of us as
a very ancient family. But all my father ever said, to evince pride of
ancestry, was in honor of William Caxton, citizen and printer in the
reign of Edward IV.,--Clarum et venerabile nomen! an ancestor a man of
letters might be justly vain of.

"Heus," said my father, stopping short, and lifting his eyes from the
Colloquies of Erasmus, "salve multum, jucundissime."

Uncle Jack was not much of a scholar, but he knew enough Latin to
answer, "Salve tantundem, mi frater."

My father smiled approvingly. "I see you comprehend true urbanity, or
politeness, as we phrase it. There is an elegance in addressing th