ABSTRACT
There is little to interest in a narrative of early childhood, unless indeed one were writing on education. We shall not therefore linger over the infancy of the motherless boy left to the protection of Mrs. Margery Lobkins, 58 or, as she was sometimes familiarly called, Peggy or Piggy Lob. The good dame, drawing a more than sufficient income from the profits of a house, which, if situated in an obscure locality, enjoyed very general and lucrative repute; and being a lone widow without kith or kin, had no temptation to break her word to the deceased, and she suffered the orphan to wax in strength and understanding until the age of twelve, a period at which we are now about to reintroduce him to our readers.
