ng to a home where I had never heard the voice of kindness
or affection; where one fond word, one look of welcome, had never
met me. I was returning, not to receive the last blessing of a loving
parent, but merely sent for as a necessary ceremony on the occasion. And
perhaps there was a mock propriety in inviting me once more to the house
which I was never to revisit. My father, a widower for many years, had
bestowed all his affection on my elder brother, to whom so much of his
property as had escaped the general wreck was to descend. He had been
sent to Eton under the guidance of a private tutor, while an obscure
Dublin school was deemed good enough for me. For him every nerve was
strained to supply all his boyish extravagance, and enable him to
compete with the sons of men of high rank and fortune, whose names,
mentioned in his letters home, were an ample recompense for all the
lavish expenditure their intimacy entailed. My letters were few and
brief; their unvaried theme the delay in the last quarter's payment,
or the unfurnished condition of my little trunk, which more than once
exposed me to the taunts of my schoolfellows.

He was a fair and delicate boy, timid in manner and retiring in
disposition; I, a browned-faced varlet, who knew every one from the herd
to the high-sheriff. To him the servants were directed to look up as the
head of the house; while I was consigned either to total neglect, or
the attentions of those who only figured as supernumeraries in our Army
List. Yet, with all these sources of jealousy between us, we loved each
other tenderly. George pitied "poor Tommy," as he called me; and for
that very pity my heart clung to him. He would often undertake to plead
my cause for those bolder infractions his gentle nature never ventured
on; and it was only from long association with boys of superior rank,
whose habits and opinions he believed to be standards for his imitation,
that A" at length a feeling of estrangement grew up between us, and we
learned to look somewhat coldly on each other.

From these brief details it will not be wondered at it I turned
homeward with a heavy heart. From the hour I received the letter of my
recall--which was written by my father's attorney in most concise and
legal phrase--I had scarcely ceased to shed tears; for so it is, there
is something in the very thought of being left an orphan, friendless
and unprotected, quite distinct from the loss of affection and kindness
w