Almost from the time he could toddle about the carpeted floor, had Aunt Grace been trying to teach him what she called manners.

But he was never an apt scholar in her school.

If he mastered the A B C to-day, most probably on her attempt to advance him to-morrow into his a-b ab's, he had wholly forgotten the previous lesson.

Poor Aunt Grace! She saw no hope for the boy.

All her labour was lost on him.
Fanny, the oldest child, just completing her seventeenth year, was of fair complexion and delicate frame; strikingly beautiful, and as pure in mind as she was lovely in person.