dy, the gentlest and kindest of the votaries of
celibacy.

The vehemence of Sir Everard's resentment against his brother was but
short-lived; yet his dislike to the Whig and the placeman, though unable
to stimulate him to resume any active measures prejudicial to Richard's
interest in the succession to the family estate, continued to maintain
the coldness between them. Richard knew enough of the world, and of his
brother's temper, to believe that by any ill-considered or precipitate
advances on his part, he might turn passive dislike into a more active
principle. It was accident, therefore, which at length occasioned a
renewal of their intercourse. Richard had married a young woman of rank,
by whose family interest and private fortune he hoped to advance his
career. In her right, he became possessor of a manor of some value, at
the distance of a few miles from Waverley-Honour.

Little Edward, the hero of our tale, then in his fifth year, was their
only child. It chanced that the infant with his maid had strayed one
morning to a mile's distance from the avenue of Brere-wood Lodge, his
father's seat. Their attention was attracted by a carriage drawn by six
stately long-failed black horses, and with as much carving and gilding
as would have done honour to my lord mayor's. It was waiting for
the owner, who was at a little distance inspecting the progress of a
half-built farm-house. I know not whether the boy's nurse had been
a Welsh or a Scotch woman, or in what manner he associated a shield
emblazoned with three ermines with the idea of personal property, but
he no sooner beheld this family emblem, than he stoutly determined on
vindicating his right to the splendid vehicle on which it was displayed.
The Baronet arrived while the boy's maid was in vain endeavouring to
make him desist from his determination to appropriate the gilded coach
and six. The rencontre was at a happy moment for Edward, as his uncle
had been just eyeing wistfully, with something of a feeling like envy,
the chubby boys of the stout yeoman whose mansion was building by his
direction. In the round-faced rosy cherub before him, bearing his eye
and his name, and vindicating a hereditary title to his family affection
and patronage, by means of a tie which Sir Everard held as sacred as
either Garter or Blue Mantle, Providence seemed to have granted to him
the very object best calculated to fill up the void in his hopes and
affections. Sir Everard returned