presented a cheerful contrast to the great, grim,
cold house, in the dull country town, wherein
her early years had been passed.

Ah, that house! if she could but have
known what would occur within it!

I have heard that her father and his (I am
speaking now of my uncle, with whom I set
out) was an attorney, who became rich by
the practice of his profession, and that he
brought up his son to the same business.
Old Swinchat—Foxey Swinchat, folks called
him—died in harness, leaving his money to be
equally divided betwixt his son and daughter.
Miles, my uncle, never practised afterwards.
He had no need to do so, and was of too
sullen, obstinate, and overbearing a disposition
ever to become popular.

I have said that my grandfather, who died
before I was born, bequeathed his money in
equal proportions to his son and daughter.
He did this literally; in the latter case tying
it upon my mother and her issue, exclusive
of her husband's control. Not that he
entertained any ill-will towards my father,
but, being a shrewd, sharp man, he thought
it not unlikely that his son-in-law might
make ducks and drakes of it. I never heard
of my father's resenting this; probably he
acknowledged its prudence, which was
abundantly manifest afterwards when my mother
died.

That occurred at my birth, my only brother
being but three years old at the time. We
had a little sister, but she did not survive
her infancy. So neither John—he was called
John after his father—or myself had any
recollection of our mother, or knowledge of
her beyond what we gathered from others.
I believe she was a good woman, and I am
sure that my father loved her dearly.

Her death had a great and disastrous
effect upon him. Always a careless man and
rather a free-liver, he rode harder and drank
deeper, kept open house for very promiscuous
guests, squandered his money, and, in short,
let things go to rack and ruin. He might
have got married again—perhaps it would
have been better for us if he had—for he
was still young and handsome; but, I believe,
his affection for his dead wife restrained him
from giving us a step-mother. Meantime,
we ran wild about the house, and were
brought up anyhow.

I have remarked in life that men who have
never known a mother's care are often
harder-natured than their happier fellows:
deficient in tenderness, pity, forbearance.
Perhaps it is not unnatural that they should
be so. Jack and I, in our boy-days, promised
to be no exception to this rule—if I may so
call it. We were, I fancy, as hot-tempered,
wrong-headed, ill-disciplined, and, to use a
word which ought not to have become
antiquated, as masterful a couple of lads as any
in Yorkshire. Which is a pretty bold
assertion, too. We often quarrelled, and
sometimes fought savagely. Our father never
interfered with us, and nobody else dared to
do so.

Stop, though. I am wrong there. Our
uncle did. He never came to the house (not
that he came often since his sister's death,
or, indeed, before) without saying something
harsh to or of us—something that set our
boys' breasts rankling against him. We
were no cowards, and often gave him as good
as he brought. Our father would laugh at
such altercations. I fancy I see him now,
with his handsome flushed face, red coat, and
top-boots, as he came in one day, all splashed
from hunting, and found Jack shaking with
passion at a speech of my uncle's. My brother
had just been fished out of the mill-stream,
and my uncle had applied an equivocal
proverb in his favour.

"Let the lads bide, Miles," he said, laughing,
"or they'll be too much for 'ee some day.
Do thou look after thy own little wench at
home."

That reminds me that I have not yet
spoken of her. My uncle had got married,
very unexpectedly, about two years after his
sister's death, to a handsome widow, with
one child, a little girl. His choice surprised
everybody, for she was a gay, pleasure-loving
woman, without fortune, and had lived in
York and London. I believe she came of
Irish lineage. Anything more contrary to
his sullen, self-willed, local Yorkshire nature
could scarcely be imagined. They did not
live happily together, and she would have
quitted him if his passionate temper had not
beaten down all opposition. My aunt was
rather a favourite with us, being a good-
humoured though frivolous woman. Her
little girl was one of the most beautiful
creatures in this world, I do believe.

We were shy of her; conscious, when in
her presence, of a boyish awkwardness and
want of breeding which never troubled us
elsewhere. She knew this well enough, for,
baby-coquette as she was, all her mother's
nature promised to re-appear in her. I have
looked covertly into her eyes, wondering at
their exceeding beauty and fascination, being
dimly and uneasily cognisant at the same
time that it would be unsafe to trust them,
and apprehensive that she might look up and
at once divine my thoughts, as she always
could. Jack cared more about her than I at
that time, and she knew it and treated him
worse. I don't think he was jealous of me
in those days.

My father liked to have her at the Hall,
and would have kept her permanently, if my
uncle had permitted. He used to call her
his little sweetheart, humoured all her
whims and did his best to spoil her, as he did
us and all children. When the cholera came
into our part of the country (it ravaged all
England that year), and she and her mother
were attacked by it, he rode over to town
every day to inquire about them. Katy, that
was her name, recovered, but my aunt died.