s constantly in his room, never wearying, apparently,
of our society. This he did, I have no doubt, not only because he loved
us, but that he might ascertain our different characters and
dispositions, and at once eradicate, as far as he was able, each budding
tendency to evil as it appeared.

Such was my father, a fine, intelligent, gentlemanly, handsome man; and
though his hair was perfectly grey, his complexion was yet clear, nor
had his eye lost the animation of youth. It is with great satisfaction
that I can look back and picture him as I have now faithfully drawn his
portrait.

Our dear mother, too, she was worthy to be his wife,--so amiable, and
loving, and sensible, a pious Christian and a perfect gentlewoman,
thoroughly educated, and capable of bringing up her daughters to fill
the same station in life she occupied, which was all she desired for
them. Indeed, we boys also received much of our early instruction from
her, and I feel very certain that we retained far more of what she
taught us than we acquired from any other source. To her we owed,
especially, lessons of piety and instruction in the Holy Scriptures,
never, I trust, to be forgotten, as well as much elementary secular
knowledge, which probably we should otherwise have been very long in
picking up. My mother had no relations of whom we, at all events, knew
anything in England. She was the daughter of an Englishman, however,
who had, when the Mauritius first came under the dominion of Great
Britain, gone out there as a settler and planter, leaving her, his only
child, to be educated in England.

Mr Coventry, my grandfather, was, we understood, of a somewhat
eccentric disposition, and had for some years wandered about in the
Eastern seas and among the islands of the Pacific, although he had
ultimately returned again to his estate. He had transmitted home ample
funds for his daughter's education, but he kept up very little
communication with her, and had never even expressed any intention of
sending for her to join him. The lady under whose charge she had been
left was a very excellent person, and had thoroughly done her duty by
her in cultivating to the utmost all the good qualities and talents she
possessed. That lady was a friend of my father's family, and thus my
father became acquainted with her pupil, to whom he was before long
married.

It was necessary for me to give this brief account of my family history,
to explain the causes whi