h, the greater the obscurity in which
they remained, the less would be the scandal. The brother who had
taken to business, was the senior partner in a large ship-building
firm at Greenock. This man, William Fuller Withrop by name--Wilful
Withrop the neighbours had nicknamed him--was a bachelor, and
reputed rich. Mr. Sclater did not hear of him what roused very
brilliant hopes. He was one who would demand more reason than
reasonable for the most reasonable of actions that involved parting
with money; yet he had been known to do a liberal thing for a public
object. Waste was so wicked that any other moral risk was
preferable. Of the three, he would waste mind and body rather than
estate. Man was made neither to rejoice nor to mourn, but to
possess. To leave no stone unturned, however, Mr. Sclater wrote to
Mr. Withrop. The answer he received was, that, as the sister,
concerning whose child he had applied to him, had never been
anything but a trouble to the family; as he had no associations with
her memory save those of misery and disgrace; as, before he left
home, her name had long ceased to be mentioned among them; and as
her own father had deliberately and absolutely disowned her because
of her obstinate disobedience and wilfulness, it could hardly be
expected of him, and indeed would ill become him, to show any lively
interest in her offspring. Still, although he could not honestly
pretend to the smallest concern about him, he had, from pure
curiosity, made inquiry of correspondents with regard to the boy;
from which the resulting, knowledge was, that he was little better
than an idiot, whose character, education, and manners, had been
picked up in the streets. Nothing, he was satisfied, could be done
for such a child, which would not make him more miserable, as well
as more wicked, than he was already. Therefore, &c., &c., &c.

Thus failing, Mr. Sclater said to himself he had done all that could
be required of him--and he had indeed taken trouble. Nor could
anything be asserted, he said further to himself, as his duty in
respect of this child, that was not equally his duty in respect of
every little wanderer in the streets of his parish. That a child's
ancestors had been favoured above others, and had so misused their
advantages that their last representative was left in abject
poverty, could hardly be a reason why that child, born, in more than
probability, with the same evil propensities which had ruin