Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/23

 stuck upon the sides of the grate, he would begin'Well, well,' he would cry, after I had talked a little, 'that is not bad reasoning, but the basis is bad.'

“My father always checked any propensity to finery in dress. If any of us happened to look better than usual in a particular hat or frock, he was sure to have it put away the next day, and to have something coarse substituted in its place.

"When I was young, I was always the first to promote my sister’s enjoyments. Whether in dancing, or in riding on horseback, or at a feast, or in anything that was to make them happy, I always had something to do or propose that increased their pleasure. In like manner, afterwards, in guiding them in politics, in giving them advice for their conduct in private life, in forwarding them in the world, I was a means of much good to them. It was always Hester, and Hester, and Hester; in short, I appeared to be the favourite of them all; and yet now, see how they treat me!

"I was always, as I am now, full of activity, from my infancy. At two years old, I made a little hat. You know there was a kind of straw hat with the crown taken out, and in its stead a piece of satin was put in, all puffed up. Well! I made myself a hat like that; and it was thought such a thing for a child of two years old to do, that my grandpapa had a