Page:Vivian Grey, Volume 1.djvu/17

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VIVIAN GREY.
7

which fathers are always heirs to, yet reminded his parent, that boys were any thing else but playthings. The intercourse between father and son was, of course, extremely limited; for Vivian was, as yet, the mother's child; Mr. Grey's parental duties being confined to giving his son a glass of claret per diem, pulling his ears with all the awkwardness of literary affection, and trusting to God "that the urchin would never scribble.”

"I won't go to school, Mamma," bawled Vivian.

"But you must, my love," answered Mrs. Grey; "all good boys go to school;" and in the plenitude of a mother's love, she tried to make her offspring's hair curl.

"I won't have my hair curl, Mamma; the boys will laugh at me," rebawled the beauty.

"Now who could have told the child that?" monologised Mamma, with all a Mamma's admiration.