The first incident of my life, of which I have a very distinct recollection, shall now be recorded. One morning in the middle of July, when I was about twelve years of age, I was suddenly summoned into the drawing-room, to hold a conference with my two aunts; or rather to look at the one, and to listen to the other. When I entered, the elder was seated, unemployed as to her hands, but with something of the expression upon her countenance usually given by painters to the philosopher who had made the long-desired discovery of the secret about Hiero's crown, and who exultingly ran about the city, crying, "I have discovered it, I have discovered it." Rachel was calmly knitting a pair of stockings for an old woman in the village. My aunt Winifred called me to hertook me by the hand-and would have kissed me, but that, alas! she perceived my face begrimed to the very eyes with half the contents of a pot of black-currant jelly, which she had,

upon pain of her mortal displeasure, prohibited me from touching about an hour before. But being on the eve of promulgating one of those maxims, on which she deemed that my future welfare in life depended, she thought it, I suppose, impolitic to rouse any passions in my breast unfavourable to the lecture. Accordingly, with much sagacity, she left the currant jelly to soften the way for her lesson, and thus proceeded.

"My dear Sancho, I, and your aunt Rachel" (for this was the order in which she always introduced the two names)" have been determining to send you to school. You know my deep anxiety for your welfare, and therefore I need not insist upon the point. In order, then, to promote it, I have been consulting my memory for some single sentence in which I may treasure up all the advice which it is most desirable for me to give you on the present occasion. Nor have I consulted in vain. There is one

rule, my dear boy, which will carry you with safety, honour, and splendour through life-it

is this, Take care of Number One!'"

Rachel, who, I suppose, comprehended the full meaning of the proverb, almost groaned.

"Sister Rachel," said my aunt Winifred (whose ears on occasions such as these were prodigiously quick), "I know the expression is homely; but what of that? Truth is truth, though never so homely.'

Aunt Rachel answered nothing; but I was far from being so silent on the occasion. I have not yet informed the reader (and it is a fact which I perceive writers in general have a prodigious objection, however well founded,, to state to their readers) that I was always a person of rather dull understanding. The reader may possibly, if charitable, think me a little improved by this time. I nevertheless beg to assure him, that of my dulness, at twelve years

old, there never was the smallest question amongst those who knew me best. And of all things difficult to my apprehension, unfortunately for my aunt, and as she thought for myself, proverbs were the most difficult. Accordingly, I rarely failed, when my aunt first promulgated a sentiment of this kind, to her unbounded mortification, entirely to misapprehend it; and thus it was now. When my aunt, therefore, authoritatively and solemnly pronounced the words "Take care of Number One," it by no means occurred to me that "Number One" was the representative of so dignified a person as myself; but, thinking exclusively of a very splendid set of numbered counters which she had given me a few days before, I very simply asked, "And, aunt, must not I take care of "Number Two also?"

Child," said my aunt, you are little

"better than an ideot. Number One' means

"your foolish self; and, therefore, if I must put

"into common English what is so briefly and

forcibly expressed by the proverb, Take "care of Number One,' means • Take care "of yourself alone.""

"Oh," said I, "aunt, now I do understand

you; and I am sure you will think me a very

good boy, for I have just been taking care "" of Number One' in the very way you mean, "by eating up all the currant jelly which you " left upon the table."

My aunt Rachel a little archly smiled. But not so her sister. Her perplexity was extreme. For what dilemma could be more complete ? Either she was wrong in ordering me not to eat the currant jelly; or the proverb was inaccurate. One of the two must be sacrificed-and nothing in the world was so dear to her as the reputation and honour of both. The only expedient which occurred to her was the searching for some other proverb which might supply some sort of qualification for this. She would at the mo