so fond of
gratifying me in every way, that I delight in being with her; and we
ride out together constantly, and I am now teaching her to drive the
ponies, and she enjoys it just as I used myself. I don't think papa
likes her, for he seldom speaks to her, and never takes her in to dinner
if there is another lady in the room; and I suspect she feels this,
for she is often very sad. I dislike Mr. Cleremont; he is always saying
snappish things, and is never happy, no matter how merry we are. But
papa seems to like him best of all the people here. Old Captain Hotham
and I are great friends, though he's always saying, 'You ought to be at
sea, youngster. This sort of life will only make a blackleg of you.'
But I can't make out why, because I am very happy and have so much to
interest and amuse me, I must become a scamp. Mdme. Cleremont says, too,
it is not true; that papa is bringing me up exactly as he ought, that I
will enter life as a gentleman, and not be passing the best years of
my existence in learning the habits of the well-bred world. They fight
bitterly over this every day; but she always gets the victory, and then
kisses me, and says, 'Mon cher petit Digby, I 'll not have you spoiled,
to please any vulgar prejudice of a tiresome old sea-captain,' This she
whispers, for she would not offend him for anything. Dear mamma, how you
would love her if you knew her! I believe I 'm to go to Rugby to school;
but I hope not, for how I shall live like a schoolboy after all this
happiness I don't know; and Mdme. Cleremont says she will never permit
it; but she has no influence over papa, and how could she prevent it?
Captain Hotham is always saying, 'If Norcott does not send that boy
to Harrow or Rugby, or some of these places, he 'll graduate in the
Marshalsea--that's a prison--before he's twenty.' I am so glad when a
day passes without my being brought up for the subject of a discussion,
which papa always ends with, 'After all I was neither an Etonian nor
Rugbeian, and I suspect I can hold my own with most men; and if that boy
doesn't belie his breeding, perhaps he may do so too.'

"Nobody likes contradicting papa, especially when he says anything in a
certain tone of voice, and whenever he uses this, the conversation turns
away to something else.

"I forgot to say in my last, that your letters always come regularly.
They arrive with papa's, and he sends them up to me at once, by
his valet, Mons. Durand, who is always so n