You used to speak of her as Pheeb."
"Ah! yes," she answered, "but Pheeb behaved bad, and it's Topsy
now."
Ernest's daughter Alice married the boy who had been her playmate
more than a year ago. Ernest gave them all they said they wanted and a
good deal more. They have already presented him with a grandson, and I
doubt not will do so with many more. Georgie though only twenty-one is
owner of a fine steamer which his father has bought for him. He
began when about thirteen going with old Rollings and Jack in the
barge from Rochester to the upper Thames with bricks; then his
father bought him and Jack barges of their own, and then he bought
them both ships, and then steamers. I do not exactly know how people
make money by having a steamer, but he does whatever is usual, and
from I can gather makes it pay extremely well. He is a good deal
like his father in the face, but without a spark- so far as I have
been able to observe- of any literary ability; he has a fair sense
of humour and abundance of common sense, but his instinct is clearly a
practical one. I am not sure that he does not put me in mind almost
more of what Theobald would have been if he had been a sailor, than of
Ernest.
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