This confidence is due to you in return for yours; and since you will soon leave me, and I am an old man, whose life no prudent calculation can fix, I may as well choose the present time to favour you with my confessions." Clarence expressed and looked his interest, and the old man thus commenced,-- THE HISTORY OF A VAIN MAN.
I was the favourite of my parents, for I was quick at my lessons, and my father said I inherited my genius from him; and comely in my person, and my mother said that my good looks came from her.

So the honest pair saw in their eldest son the union of their own attractions, and thought they were making much of themselves when they lavished their caresses upon me.

They had another son, poor Arthur,--I think I see him now! He was a shy, quiet, subdued boy, of a very plain personal appearance.

My father and mother were vain, showy, ambitious people of the world, and they were as ashamed of my brother as they were proud of myself.

However, he afterwards entered the army and distinguished himself highly.