When my uncle was gone I ceased crying; my father forgot to lecture me for my ill humour, or to enquire into the cause, and we were soon seated by the side of the tombstone.  No lesson went on that day; no talking of pretty mamma sleeping in the green grave; no jumping from the tombstone to the ground; no merry jokes or pleasant stories.  I sate upon my father’s knee, looking up in his face, and thinking, “How sorry papa looks,” till, having been fatigued with crying, and now oppressed with thought, I fell fast asleep.

My uncle soon learned from Susan that this place was our constant haunt; she told him she did verily believe her master would never get the better of the death of her mistress, while he continued to teach the child to read at the tombstone; for, though it might sooth his grief, it kept it for ever fresh in his memory.  The sight of his sister’s grave had been such a shock to my uncle, that he readily entered into Susan’s apprehensions; and concluding, that if I were set to study by some other means there would no longer be a pretence for these visits to the grave, away my kind uncle hastened to the nearest market-town to buy me some books.

I heard the conference between my uncle and Susan, and I did not approve of his interfering in our pleasures.  I saw him take his hat and walk out, and I secretly hoped he was gone beyond seas again, from whence Susan had told me he had come.  Where beyond seas was I could not tell; but I concluded it was somewhere a great way off.  I took my seat on the church-yard stile, and kept looking down the road, and saying, “I hope I shall not see my uncle again.  I hope my uncle will not come from beyond seas any more;” but I said this very softly, and had a kind of notion that I was in a perverse ill-humoured fit.  Here I sate till my uncle returned from the market-town with his new purchases.  I saw him come walking very fast with a parcel under his arm.  I was very sorry to see him, and I frowned, and tried to look very cross.  He untied his parcel, and said, “Betsy, I have brought you a pretty book.”  I turned my head away, and said, “I don’t want a book;” but I could not help peeping again to look at it.  In the hurry of opening the parcel he had scattered all the books upon the ground, and there I saw fine gilt covers and gay pictures all fluttering about.  What a fine sight!—­All my resentment vanished, and I held up my face to kiss him, that being my way of thanking my father for any extraordinary favour.

My uncle had brought himself into rather a troublesome office; he had heard me spell so well, that he thought there was nothing to do but to put books into my hand, and I should read; yet, notwithstanding I spelt tolerably well, the letters in my new library were so much smaller than I had been accustomed to, they were like Greek characters to me; I could make nothing at all of them.  The honest sailor was not to be discouraged by this