doing your duty. What do you think the captain of a ship would
say to an officer who had not obeyed his orders, should the latter
remark to him, `Really, sir, I felt so little interest in the matter, or
I disliked it so very much, that I could not bring myself to perform the
work?' Yet this is what you have been doing, my boy. I will say no
more on the subject. You will go back to school at the end of the
holidays; and if I find that, from a sense of duty, you are attending,
to the best of your power, to the studies your master may select for
you, I will take your wishes into my very earnest consideration, and see
how I can best carry them out for your advantage."

I felt how just, and kind, and considerate my father was, and I resolved
to the utmost to follow his advice. I shall never forget those
Christmas holidays. They were very, very happy ones. Our eldest
brother Jack, who was at college, was a very clever fellow, and put us
up to all sorts of fun. In doors and out of doors there was nothing he
did not think of. He never bullied, and wasn't a bit spoiled. He was
going to study at the bar, that he might better look after the family
property. James, the next, was the quiet one; he was preparing for the
Church. Then came our third sister, Mary. Julia and Isabella were
older than any of us. Mary was my favourite. There was nothing she
wouldn't do for me--or, for that matter, for any of us. She did not
like baiting our hooks when we were fishing, but still she did it when
we asked her; and I do really believe that the worms didn't feel half
the pain they otherwise would when handled by her fingers. She'd go out
with us rat-catching and badger-hunting, and yet, to see her in the
drawing-room, there wasn't a sweeter, softer, more feminine girl in the
county. When we were at school, she wrote us twice as many letters as
anybody else, and told us how the pony and the dogs were getting on; and
how old Martin had found a wasp's nest, which he was keeping for us to
blow up--and all that sort of thing. Willie and Georgie were at school
with me, and Herbert was going the next half, and after him were two
more girls, so that Mary had no companions of her own age, and that made
her, I suppose, stick so much more to us than the older ones did, who
were now young ladies--old enough to go to balls, and to talk when any
gentlemen called.

I cannot stop to describe our amusements. I went to school with a more
hop