night has he had no sleep, dear man! in consequence of the poor little baby. He walks up and down with it FOR HOURS, singing a kind of song (dear fellow, he has no more voice than a tea-kettle), and bobbing his head backwards and forwards, and looking, in his nightcap and dressing-gown, SO DROLL. Oh, Eliza! how you would laugh to see him.

"We have one of the best nursemaids IN THE WORLD,—an Irishwoman, who is as fond of baby almost as his mother (but that can NEVER BE). She takes it to walk in the park for hours together, and I really don't know why Thomas dislikes her. He says she is tipsy, very often, and slovenly, which I cannot conceive;—to be sure, the nurse is sadly dirty, and sometimes smells very strong of gin.

"But what of that?—these little drawbacks only make home more pleasant. When one thinks how many mothers have NO nursemaids: how many poor dear children have no doctors: ought we not to be thankful for Mary Malowney, and that Dr. Bates's bill is forty-seven pounds? How ill must dear baby have been, to require so much physic!

"But they are a sad expense, these dear babies, after all. Fancy, Eliza, how much this Mary Malowney costs us. Ten shillings every week; a glass of brandy or gin at dinner; three pint-bottles of Mr. Thrale's best porter every day,—making twenty-one in a week, and nine hundred and ninety in the eleven months she has been with us. Then, for baby, there is Dr. Bates's bill of forty-five guineas, two guineas for christening, twenty for a grand christening supper and ball (rich uncle John mortally offended because he was made godfather, and had to give baby a silver cup: he has struck Thomas out of his will: and old Mr. Firkin quite as much hurt because he was NOT asked: he will not speak to me or Thomas in consequence) twenty guineas for flannels, laces, little gowns, caps, napkins, and such baby's ware: and all this out of 300L. a year! But Thomas expects to make A GREAT DEAL by his farm.

"We have got the most charming country-house YOU CAN IMAGINE: it is QUITE SHUT IN by trees, and so retired that, though only thirty miles from London, the post comes to us but once a week. The roads, it must be confessed, are execrable; it is winter now, and we are up to our knees in mud and snow. But oh, Eliza! how happy we are: with Thomas (he has had a sad attack of rheumatism, dear man!) and little Bobby, and our kind friend Dr. Bates, who comes so far to see us, I leave you to fancy that we have a charming merry party, and do not care for all the gayeties of Ranelagh.

"Adieu! dear baby is crying for his mamma. A thousand kisses from your affectionate

"SUSAN STUBBS."

There it is! Doctor's bills, gentleman-farming, twenty-one pints of porter a week. In this way my unnatural parents were already robbing me of my property.

FEBRUARY.—CUTTING WEATHER.

I have called this chapter "cutting weather," partly in compliment to the month of February, and partly in respect of my own misfortunes, which you are going to read about. For I have often thought that January (which is mostly twelfth-cake and holiday time) is like the first four or five years of a little boy's life; then comes dismal February, and the working-days with it, when chaps begin to look out for themselves, after the Christmas and the New Year's heyday and merrymaking are over, which our infancy may well be said to be. Well can I recollect that bitter first of February, when I first launched out into the world and appeared at Doctor Swishtail's academy.

I began at school that life of prudence and economy which I have carried on ever since. My mother gave me eighteenpence on setting out (poor soul! I thought her heart would break as she kissed me, and bade God bless me); and, besides, I had a small capital of my own which I had amassed for a year previous. I'll tell you, what I used to do. Wherever I saw six halfpence I took one. If it was asked for I said I had taken it and gave it back;—if it was not missed, I said nothing about it, as why should I?—those who don't miss their money, don't lose their money. So I had a little private fortune of three shillings, besides mother's eighteenpence. At school they called me the copper-merchant, I had such lots of it.

Now, even at a preparatory school, a well-regulated boy may better himself: and I can tell you I did. I never was in any quarrels: I never was very high in the class or very low: but there was no chap so much respected:—and why? I'D ALWAYS MONEY. The other boys spent all theirs in the first day or two, and they gave me plenty of cakes and barley-sugar then, I can tell you. I'd no need to spend my own money, for they would insist upon treating me. Well, in a week, when theirs was gone, and they had but their threepence a week to look to for the rest of the half-year, what did I do? Why, I am proud to say that three-halfpence out of the threepence a week of almost all the young gentlemen at Dr. Swishtail's, came into my pocket. Suppose, for instance, Tom Hicks wanted a slice of gingerbread, who had the money? Little Bob Stubbs, to be sure. "Hicks," I used to say, "I'LL buy you three halfp'orth of gingerbread, if you'll give me threepence next Saturday." And he agreed; and next Saturday came, and he very often could not pay me more than three-halfpence. Then there was the threepence I was to have THE NEXT Saturday. I'll tell you what I did for a whole half-year:—I lent a chap, by the name of Dick Bunting, three-halfpence the first Saturday for three-pence the next: he could not pay me more than half when Saturday came, and I'm blest if I did not make him pay me three-halfpence FOR THREE-AND-TWENTY WEEKS RUNNING, making two shillings and tenpence-halfpenny. But he was a sad dishonorable fellow, Dick Bunting; for after I'd been so kind to him, and let him off for three-and-twenty-weeks the money he owed me, holidays came, and threepence he owed me still. Well, according to the common principles of practice, after six-weeks' holidays, he ought to have paid me exactly sixteen shillings, which was my due. For the

Nothing could be more just; and yet—will it be believed? when Bunting came back he offered me THREE-HALFPENCE! the mean, dishonest scoundrel.

However, I was even with him, I can tell you.—He spent all his money in a fortnight, and THEN I screwed him down! I made him, besides giving me a penny for a penny, pay me a quarter of his bread and butter at breakfast and a quarter of his cheese at supper; and before the half-year was out, I got from him a silver fruit-knife, a box of compasses, and a very pretty silver-laced waistcoat, in which I went home as proud as a king: and, what's more, I had no less than three golden guineas in the pocket of it, besides fifteen shillings, the knife, and a brass bottle-screw, which I got from another chap. It wasn't bad interest for twelve shillings—which was all the money I'd had in the year—was it? Heigho! I've often wished that I could get such a chance again in this wicked world; but men are more avaricious now than they used to be in those dear early days.

Well, I went home in my new waistcoat as fine as a peacock; and when I gave the bottle-screw to my father, begging him to take it as a token of my affection for him, my dear mother burst into such a fit of tears as I never saw, and kissed and hugged me fit to smother me. "Bless him, bless him," says she, "to think of his old father. And where did you purchase it, Bob?"—"Why, mother," says I, "I purchased it out of my savings" (which was as true as the gospel).—When I said this, mother looked round to father, smiling, although she had tears in her eyes, and she