ate and gallant kind of boy, adventurous and generous, daring
to a singular degree." Apt enough withal to be "petulant now and then;"
on the whole, "very self-willed;" doubtless not a little discursive in
his thoughts and ways, and "difficult to manage."

I rather think Anthony, as the steadier, more substantial boy, was
the Mother's favorite; and that John, though the quicker and cleverer,
perhaps cost her many anxieties. Among the Papers given me, is an old
browned half-sheet in stiff school hand, unpunctuated, occasionally ill
spelt,--John Sterling's earliest remaining Letter,--which gives record
of a crowning escapade of his, the first and the last of its kind; and
so may be inserted here. A very headlong adventure on the boy's part; so
hasty and so futile, at once audacious and impracticable; emblematic of
much that befell in the history of the man!

"_To Mrs. Sterling, Blackheath_.
"21st September, 1818.

"DEAR MAMMA,--I am now at Dover, where I arrived this morning about
seven o'clock. When you thought I was going to church, I went down the
Kent Road, and walked on till I came to Gravesend, which is upwards of
twenty miles from Blackheath; at about seven o'clock in the evening,
without having eat anything the whole time. I applied to an inkeeper
(_sic_) there, pretending that I had served a haberdasher in London, who
left of (_sic_) business, and turned me away. He believed me; and got
me a passage in the coach here, for I said that I had an Uncle here, and
that my Father and Mother were dead;--when I wandered about the quays
for some time, till I met Captain Keys, whom I asked to give me a
passage to Boulogne; which he promised to do, and took me home to
breakfast with him: but Mrs. Keys questioned me a good deal; when I not
being able to make my story good, I was obliged to confess to her that
I had run away from you. Captain Keys says that he will keep me at his
house till you answer my letter.

"J. STERLING."

Anthony remembers the business well; but can assign no origin to
it,--some penalty, indignity or cross put suddenly on John, which the
hasty John considered unbearable. His Mother's inconsolable weeping, and
then his own astonishment at such a culprit's being forgiven, are all
that remain with Anthony. The steady historical style of the young
runaway of twelve, narrating merely,