204 Parsnips, Dietetic Use of 165 204 Pastilles, Fumigating...... 265 Names, English.. Penny, How it became a Thousand Pounds 132 sons 47 57 Pickles, Dietetic Use of... 166 Nightingale, Habits of the Noble Reply to the Foun- Plants, Migration of...... 253 64 Plants, Storing in Winter 258 5 Playing Cards, Account of 245 Plum Pudding, Carrot ... 5 Nutcrackers, Hill's Patent 21 47 Potatoe Steamer, Barlow's 22 Morals for the Months Moreen Curtains, Clean..... ... A ALL ROUND OUR HOUSE. CHAPTER I. THE FATHER OF THE FAMILY STATES HIS REASONS FOR UNDERTAKING THE JOURNEY. A FEW days ago my boy returned from school, not merely for the Christmasholidays, but with the intention of going no more to the educational establishment in which he had been for the last four years. When I tell you that, although I have four daughters, this is my only boy, you will be able to judge from what you have experienced yourself or witnessed in others, the pride I feel in this lad, the joy that it gives me to watch his progress from the simplicity of childhood to the intelligence of youth; and how anxious I am that he may reach the maturity of manhood, and be an honour to the name he bears, long after my own history, with all its errors and sorrows, has terminated. The recent Christmas was to me and to my boy an era of great importance. I had arranged, in taking him from school, to place him under the tutorship of Dr. Renford, a gentleman of great educational acquirements, who devotes himself to the tutorship of two or three pupils, but never undertakes a larger number at the same time. I rejoiced to think that, in his fellow-pupils, my boy would find that companionship with youth which is so essential to the preservation of the genial qualities of the young heart, while he would receive from his tutor a more direct attention, a more individual watchfulness, than I could hope to obtain for him in a large establishment. I had, therefore, arranged that, during the holidays, Dr. Renford should be a visitor at our house, chiefly for the purpose of reconciling my boy to the change, and to the person who was to be his future teacher; for, being a youth of warm attachment, he had become very fond of his old schoolmaster; and to part with some of his school-fellows had caused him indescribable pain. It is surprising how, in youth, the smallest incidents swell the tide of grief, and trifles, which a sterner acquaintance with the world enables us to completely forget, seem to plunge us into the depths of misery. I had considered and prepared for this, in the arrangements made at home, to cheer my pet boy during the holidays, and to wean him by degrees from old attachments. But, in thus providing for the happiness of my boy, I did not anticipate the delight which I myself should find in the society of the amiable and gifted Dr. Renford, who, during the short time that he stayed with us, had really put me through the very process which I had designed for my boy. By his conversations upon things that were new to me, and by pointing out sources of mental gratification which, though close at hand, were utterly unknown to me, he had completely weaned me from erroneous opinions to which I had long foolishly clung, and had tutored me to a new discipline of the heart and mind, in a way that cannot fail to influence the soul. I will tell you how this influence came to be felt by me, although the incident which I shall relate is only one of many that occurred during the time that my friend, Dr. Renford, remained with me. My young people, with their mamma, made up a party to go and see the Wizard" the Great Wizard of the North"-as he was called. And I think that the night upon which they went was to be the last of the Wizard's performances at the Lyceum Theatre, B |