progress from bad to worse. He was
disbanded out of the National Guard, and he
fell into a state of somnolent indifference
which might have ended in a journey to Père-
la-Chaise, had not his mother happened to
read the very book I have just been quoting.
The sequel may be guessed. In thirteen
days, M. Guenaud was able to take a long
walk, carrying his hat on his head all the
while, which latter fact is not mentioned as a
joke. In a month, he had lost sixteen pounds
of weight, and eighteen centimetres of
circumference. In three months, his fat was
diminished by forty pounds, and his
abdominal equator by forty centimetres. Finally,
his heavy luggage in front was ultimately
removed. When M. Guenaud reappeared in
the ranks of the National Guard, his return
created immense sensation amongst his
gallant comrades. He rendered justice to the
author of his restoration to moderate breadth
and thickness; who, in return, has rendered
his patient the justice to record that he
punctually observed the treatment prescribed:
for breakfast, a beefsteak or a couple of cutlets,
with a very small quantity of vegetables and
a demi-tasse of coffee; his dinner likewise
consisted of meat and very little vegetable.
From being a great water-drinker, he
restrained himself to a bottle or a bottle and a
half of liquid per day. When thirsty, he
drank very little at a time; and between
meals he rinsed his mouth with water, either
pure or slightly acidulated with vinegar,
whenever a wish to drink was felt, as a
substitute for it.

A MOTHER.

I WAS left a widow at the age of five and
twenty, after a three years' peaceful
marriage, with a little boy of only a year old, to
bring up as I best could. I was resolved
that my boy should prove an exception to the
bitter rule which makes the only sons of
widowed mothers educational mistakes; and,
from the hour of his father's death, I devoted
myself to his education with a singleness of
purpose, and an exclusiveness of endeavour
which I thought could only bring me a
rich harvest of reward. He was too frail
and delicate for a public school; besides, I
was afraid, not only of the rough usage he
would meet with there, but also of the
moral mischief sure to be contracted. So
that I had nothing else to do but to keep
him at home, and engage a modest-
mannered young woman to teach him the
rudiments of what he ought to know. Thus, until
the age of fourteen he was brought up solely
by women, and never suffered to hear a
word or to read a line which the most saintly
maiden might not have joined in; for I
understood nothing of the difference which people
assert ought to exist in the education of boys
and girls. To me, morality was single and
direct, and admitted no species of deviation.
When nearly fifteen, I arranged for my boy
a kind of daily tutorship with our young
curate; still keeping him at home under my
own eye, and superintending his studies
myself. For I remembered to have heard
strange things of the classics, and I would
not trust even a clergyman with my child's
studies unchecked. I made Mr. Cary translate
to me every evening the lesson he was
to give the next morning; and, as I do not
confide implicitly in any one, I learnt enough
Latin myself to feel sure he was not misleading
me. Mr. Cary did not like this
superintendence,—but he was weak, and poor, and
dared not oppose me.

I was never a fond mother. I have a
horror of all kinds of demonstrativeness, and
look on impulse and expansion as very nearly
convertible terms with madness and imbecility.
But, perhaps I loved my child all the
more because I thought it wise and good to
be self-restrained. It seems to me that the
concentration of inward affection strengthens
and consolidates; whereas superficial expansion
excites, but weakens it. Therefore, very
few caresses or endearing words passed
between Derwent and myself; but we were
none the less good friends on that account.
I was proud and fond of him, for all that I
did not show my pride by the foolish caresses
which most mothers indulge in. He was a
fair, waxen-looking creature, with delicate
features, and slender, well-shaped limbs; very
quick, very agile, like a young chamois in some
of his movements; and taking greedily to all
accomplishments. He was a good musician
and a clever draughtsman; he sang sweetly,
and danced with peculiar grace; but he
knew nothing of the more essentially manly
exercises. He had never climbed a tree in
his life—at least I trust not; he could not
swim, for I was afraid of his taking cold in
the water; and, of course, all such exercises
as fencing, boxing, or wrestling, I should not
have dreamed of allowing to him. I did not
suffer the companionship of other boys: not
even our vicar's sons, when home for their
holidays,—for would they not have taught
him their school vices, rough, and vulgar,
though brave and generous lads, as they were.
I did not regret his want of that rough
handiness and coarse strength which people
generally think necessary for boys. I would
rather have had him the etherial creature he
was, than the bravest and most powerful of
a class; if, to gain those qualities, he must
have lost the purity of the gentlewoman's
son.

At last I was obliged to part with him.
I had nothing for it but to send him to the
university. It was the first wish of my
heart that he should be a clergyman; and,
to gain this wish, I must needs see him pass
through the terrible ordeal of a college
career. I could only hope in the power of the
education I had given him, and pray and
believe that it would prove sufficient against