‘Nor do I,’ replied my father.  ’I see the sons of bankers and merchants gazetted every month, and I do not see what claims they have to urge, unless they be golden ones.  However, I have not served my king fifty years to turn grumbler at this time of life.  I suppose that the people at the head of affairs know what is most proper and convenient; perhaps when the lad sees how difficult, nay, how impossible it is that he should enter the army, he will turn his mind to some other profession; I wish he may!’

‘I think he has already,’ said my mother; ’you see how fond he is of the arts, of drawing and painting, and, as far as I can judge, what he has already done is very respectable; his mind seems quite turned that way, and I heard him say the other day that he would sooner be a Michael Angelo than a general officer.  But you are always talking of him; what do you think of doing with the other child?’

‘What, indeed!’ said my father; ’that is a consideration which gives me no little uneasiness.  I am afraid it will be much more difficult to settle him in life than his brother.  What is he fitted for, even were it in my power to provide for him?  God help the child!  I bear him no ill will, on the contrary, all love and affection; but I cannot shut my eyes; there is something so strange about him!  How he behaved in Ireland!  I sent him to school to learn Greek, and he picked up Irish!’

‘And Greek as well,’ said my mother.  ’I heard him say the other day that he could read St. John in the original tongue.’

‘You will find excuses for him, I know,’ said my father.  ’You tell me I am always talking of my first-born; I might retort by saying you are always thinking of the other:  but it is the way of women always to side with the second-born.  There’s what’s her name in the Bible, by whose wiles the old blind man was induced to give to his second son the blessing which was the birthright of the other.  I wish I had been in his place!  I should not have been so easily deceived! no disguise would ever have caused me to mistake an impostor for my first-born.  Though I must say for this boy that he is nothing like Jacob; he is neither smooth nor sleek, and, though my second-born, is already taller and larger than his brother.’

‘Just so,’ said my mother; ’his brother would make a far better Jacob than he.’

‘I will hear nothing against my first-born,’ said my father, ’even in the way of insinuation:  he is my joy and pride; the very image of myself in my youthful days, long before I fought Big Ben; though perhaps not quite so tall or strong built.  As for the other, God bless the child!  I love him, I’m sure; but I must be blind not to see the difference between him and his brother.  Why, he has neither my hair nor my eyes; and then his countenance! why, ’tis absolutely swarthy, God forgive me!  I had almost said like that of a gypsy, but I have nothing to say against that; the boy is not to be