I am a bachelor uncle. That, as a mere fact, might happen to anybody;
but I am a bachelor uncle by internal fitness. I am one essentially,
just as I am an individual of the Caucasian division of the human
race; and if, through untoward circumstances--which heaven forbid--I
should lose my present position, I shouldn't be surprised if you saw
me out in the _Herald_ under "Situations Wanted--Males." Thanks
to a marrying tendency in the rest of my family, I have now little
need to advertise, all the business being thrown into my way which a
single member of my profession can attend to.
I meander, like a desultory, placid river of an old bachelor as I am,
through the flowery mead of several nurseries, but I am detained
longest among the children of my sister Lu.
Lu married Mr. Lovegrove. He is a merchant, retired with a fortune
amassed by the old-fashioned, slow processes of trade, and regards
the mercantile life of the present day only as so much greed and
gambling Christianly baptized.... Lu is my favorite sister; Lovegrove
an unusually good article of brother-in-law; and I cannot say that
any of my nieces and nephews interest me more than their two
children, Daniel and Billy, who are more unlike than words can paint
them. They are far apart in point of years; Daniel is twenty-two,
Bill eleven. I was reminded of this fact the other day by Billy, as
he stood between my legs, scowling at his book of sums.
"'A boy has eighty-five turnips and gives his sister thirty'--pretty
present for a girl, isn't it?" said Billy, with an air of supreme
contempt, "Could _you_ stand such stuff--say?"