them stories even, without success.  They stared at him, it is true; but whether there was more speculation in the open mouths, or in the fishy, overfed eyes, he found it impossible to determine.  He could not help feeling the riddle of Providence in regard to the birth of these, much harder to read than that involved in the case of some of the little thieves whose acquaintance he had made, when with Falconer, the evening before.  But he did his best; and before the time had expired —­ two hours, namely, —­ he had found out, to his satisfaction, that the elder had a turn for sums, and the younger for drawing.  So he made use of these predilections to bribe them to the exercise of their intellect upon less-favoured branches of human accomplishment.  He found the plan operate as well as it could have been expected to operate upon such material.

But one or two little incidents, relating to his intercourse with Mrs. Appleditch, I must not omit.  Though a mother’s love is more ready to purify itself than most other loves —­ yet there is a class of mothers, whose love is only an extended, scarcely an expanded, selfishness.  Mrs. Appleditch did not in the least love her children because they were children, and children committed to her care by the Father of all children; but she loved them dearly because they were her children.

One day Hugh gave Master Appleditch a smart slap across the fingers, as the ultimate resource.  The child screamed as he well knew how.  His mother burst into the room.

“Johnny, hold your tongue!”

“Teacher’s been and hurt me.”

“Hold your tongue, I say.  My head’s like to split.  Get out of the room, you little ruffian!”

She seized him by the shoulders, and turned him out, administering a box on his ear that made the room ring.  Then turning to Hugh,

“Mr. Sutherland, how dare you strike my child?” she demanded.

“He required it, Mrs. Appleditch.  I did him no harm.  He will mind what I say another time.”

“I will not have him touched.  It’s disgraceful.  To strike a child!”

She belonged to that class of humane parents who consider it cruel to inflict any corporal suffering upon children, except they do it themselves, and in a passion.  Johnnie behaved better after this, however; and the only revenge Mrs. Appleditch took for this interference with the dignity of her eldest born, and, consequently, with her own as his mother, was, that —­ with the view, probably, of impressing upon Hugh a due sense of the menial position he occupied in her family —­ she always paid him his fee of one shilling and sixpence every day before he left the house.  Once or twice she contrived accidentally that the sixpence should be in coppers.  Hugh was too much of a philosopher, however, to mind this from such a woman.  I am afraid he rather enjoyed her spite; for he felt it did not touch him, seeing it could not be less honourable to be paid by the