Nephew

“ We are all handsome in the family; even I myself, I have had my successes, the memories of which still charm me. It is my intention, my nephew, to make of you my heir. I am not very well content with my other nephew. ”

“ Your dear papa was my brother, and you, my dears, are my nephew and niece. Come to my arms, and be assured that, as far as I can, I will make up for the loss you have sustained. I will love you deeply, fondly, ardently; and for my brother’s sake, and that of your kind, gentle, and loving mother, who was as dear to me as my dear sister Gwenfan, who was the light and joy of our homes, and for your own sakes, I will be your guide, your friend, your counsellor and stay. ”

“ Am I to understand, sir, that the young gentleman, your nephew, and whom I have fosthered and cherished as the son of me bosom, is an imposther who has been thrifling with the affections of me beloved child? ”

“ Your nephew gets his share of sunshine every day, his teeth tease him and produce the dew of sorrow on his little cheeks sometimes, but in a moment it is forgotten, and he is always lively, and in continual health: he is thought to grow like his mother, so I think I may cease to be handsome with a good grace, as I have transferred it to my offspring.... ”

“ To give an idea of the contrast between the uncle and the nephew, we may compare the old man to a willow on the borders of a stream, hollowed to a skeleton and barely alive, and the young man to a sweet-brier clustering with roses, whose erect and graceful stems spring up about the hoary trunk of the old tree as if they would support it. ”

“ The nephew murmured with pale, trembling lips that a man must not be judged too severely for the follies of his youth, that he had been brought up to a wandering life, an unsettled education, but that he was willing to repair any harm that he had done. His uncle caught up the words, almost before he had completed them, with another question that came faster than the first. ”

“ I stared at her, amazed. 'But, Lady Georgina,' I cried, 'you said you wished to protect your nephew against bare-faced adventuresses who were setting their caps at him.'
She fixed her eyes on me, half-angry, half-tremulous.
'Of course,' she answered, with withering scorn. 'But, then, I thought you were trying to catch him. He tells me now you won't have him, and you won't tell him where you are going. I call it sheer insolence. Where do you hail from, girl, that you should refuse my nephew? A man that any woman in England would be proud to marry! Forty thousand a year, and an earl's grandson! ”

“ Nephews and nieces, whilst young and innocent, are as good almost as sons and daughters to a fervid and loving heart that has carried them in her arms from the hour they were born. But, after a nephew has grown into a huge hulk of a man, six feet high, and as stout as a bullock ”

“ I beg you to consider this large legacy as intended, under certain conditions, to be given by you to your nephew George. If your nephew is married at the time of my death, and if his wife is living, I request you to put him at once in possession of your legacy; accompanying it by the expression of my desire (which I am sure he will consider a sacred and binding obligation on him) that he will settle the money on his wife—and on his children, if he has any. ”

“ My ungrateful nephew was my attendant, whose sanguine mind, heated by ambition, and panting to enjoy those honours which by right of birth were mine, amidst the contending shock of arms aimed an arrow at my breast. ”

“ That is what my nephew is to-day; you must accustom yourself to look under the surface of things. My nephew is the government, the brigadier, the new alcalde, the new judge—for they all protect him, because of the unanimity of their ideas; because they are chips of the same block, birds of a feather. Understand it well; we must defend ourselves against them all, for they are all one, and one is all; we must attack them all together; and not by beating a man as he turns a corner, but as our forefathers attacked the Moors—the Moors, Remedios. ”

“ Now in full exercise, my dear nephew's affections are the source of happiness to himself and delight to all around. His abilities are shining, and, as habit strengthens the power of applying them, I feel no doubt of his becoming an ornament to society, and filling the situation appointed for him by Providence so as to set an example worthy of imitation. Domestic anxiety at present weighs upon his spirits, proving at once an acuteness of feeling and exalted sense of rectitude, which promise a foundation of future character, delightful to anticipate. ”

“ There are nine of them—fancy!—all boys; and there's nothing for any one but the eldest. He's my husband's nephew—his poor mother's my sister-in-law. He sometimes turns up here when he has nothing better to do ”

“ I have a clear recollection of my nephew then. He struck me as having grit and character, but as being wrongly placed. He had his grandfather’s tastes. He ought to have been, like him, a great scholar, a poet, an editor of marvellous old writings in new editions. I couldn’t get much out of the boy, except that he “liked the chemical business fairly,” and meant to please his father by “knowing it thoroughly” so as to qualify later for his directorship. ”

“ Gray?" interposed Grace.
"I hope so, my dear," sighed the old lady. "If he has inherited the beautiful traits of his uncle, his wholesome tastes for the outdoors and nature, he can't help being a fine fellow. But I have not seen my nephew since he was a child. He has been living here and there all these years, sometimes in America and sometimes in England. His mother and father are both dead, and he has been brought up by his mother's unmarried sisters, who are half English themselves. But he must be a nice boy, even if he has only one drop of his uncle's blood in his veins." ”

“ A nephew is a son of a brother or a son of a sister, or of a cousin male or female, or of a second cousin. An uncle is a brother of a father or mother, or of a grandfather or a grandmother, or of a great grandfather or a great grandmother. ”

“ As, however, I owe it to you and to my poor nephew, I will just say that I am perfectly content. He has given me the whole Norfolk estate, heavily charged, I believe, but that is indifferent. I had reason to think that he had disgraced, by totally omitting me—but unhappy as his intellects often were, and beset as he was by miscreants, he has restored me to my birth-right, and I shall call myself obliged to him, and be grateful to his memory, as I am to your Ladyship, and shall be, as I have so long been, your devoted servant, by whatever name I may be forced to call myself. ”

“ But I never forgot you; and when I visited my nephew in the West, and met only coldness and neglect, simply because of my misfortunes, I could not help contrasting it with your kind attention to an entire stranger.
“I left those heartless people and came to my niece, and met with the same reception, when before they had always fawned at my feet, flattered and humored me as if I had been something more than common clay. ”

“ Even at the herring fishery my nephew, I am proud to say, makes himself a general favourite. He is the life and soul of his own crew; but curiously enough, the ‘young minister,’ as he is always called, assembles a crowd around him every evening on the beach, and gives a lecture that causes all hands to laugh, so that sometimes he has to wait for over a minute before he can be heard again. ”

“ But you, who have known the higher order of our species, you who have received the homage of men, whose thoughts and mind leave the small talk of drawing-room triflers so poor and bald, you cannot look me in the face and say that it is any passion resembling love which you feel for my nephew. And as to position, it is right that I should inform you that if he marry you he will have none. He may risk his inheritance. You will receive no countenance from his parents. ”

“ You knew my nephew well?”
“He was a frequent visitor to this house, Mr. Cran.”
“You were friends?”
She drew herself up. “Friends—nothing more, I assure you.”
“Pardon my curiosity; it is not idle. You have heard, no doubt, that a discrepancy came to light in certain accounts,—fifteen hundred dollars to be precise,—and that immediately thereafter my nephew went—disappeared.” ”

“ Preface
"Uncle, why don't you write the story of your life?" So says my nephew Tom to me when he comes in and finds me sitting in a brown study before a comfortable fire. I have finally granted his request, for I have spent many an hour in relating my thrilling adventures to him and am sure that he has enjoyed them and even profited by them. ”

“ He advances in age, and alters his intentions in favor of a nephew on his father's side,—an amiable young man, living abroad,—and from whom he had been estranged in consequence of a family quarrel of long standing. ”

“ I was bursting to tell him of my affair, and that he had another nephew, to whom if common justice were rendered, his fortune was as certainly made for life.
"Guy's business happened this way," continued my uncle, who was quite engrossed by the thought of his favourite's success. "The father of the young lady met him in Ireland, or Scotland, or some such place, where he was with his regiment—was greatly struck with his manner and address—found him out to be my nephew—asked him to his house—and, in fact, almost threw this lovely girl at his head before they were two months acquainted." ”

“ I have a nephew, an indiscreet boy, but the bravest fellow in the world; he is captain in the marine service. In his last voyage from Cadiz to Bordeaux he took as passengers a Spanish canon and his niece. My nephew fell desperately in love with the niece, but by a series of events too long and too ridiculous to relate to you, the canon took the greatest aversion to my nephew, and informed him that he should never marry Dolores. ”

“ As they got out of the woods they saw a lodge, and as they came near it there seemed to be no one in it, all was so [447] quiet. The younger boy crept up carefully, and making a sudden leap, sprang into the house, calling out, “I have caught you, uncle!” “How are you, nephew?” said the uncle; “I am glad you have come. I am sick; you shall give me medicine.” “All right,” replied the younger boy, “whatever you wish shall be done. What is it you take most pleasure in?” “It is this, nephew,” said the uncle. “When a person comes to see me I play hide and seek. ”

“ Then suddenly there was another buzz from the youthful table, and our eldest nephew rose in his place.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began (adding by what was scarcely a happy after-thought, “and aunts and uncles”) , “we have drunk to the old house, and now I want to call another toast—with your kind permission,” he said, catching the eye of an elderly cousin. “So fill your glasses, please—no heel-taps—bumpers, please! Here's to the jolliest aunt and uncle that ever were. The dearest and kindest and jolliest and best—Aunt Chloe and Uncle Len. Long life and happiness to them! God bless them! ”

“ I commence it. There live here, let us suppose, an uncle and nephew. The uncle, a rigid old gentleman of strong force of character; the nephew, habitually timid, repressed, and under constraint.’
Mistress Affery, fixedly attentive in the window-seat, biting the rolled up end of her apron, and trembling from head to foot, here cried out, ‘Jeremiah, keep off from me! I’ve heerd, in my dreams, of Arthur’s father and his uncle. He’s a talking of them. ”

“ Therefore acting upon that very contrariness, I wrote to my graceless nephew there, telling him that he need have no fear for his freedom—that we had changed our plans with regard to him—that our Pen was a thousand times too good and sweet for such as he—which she is, mark you!—that she was a beauty, and reigning toast of all the South Country—which she likewise is, mark you—and, in a word, forbidding him to think any more about her. ”

“ Each went in and out of his own part of the lodge whenever he liked, but never dared to cross the threshold of the other’s room.
After a time the nephew, a handsome young man, discovered his uncle’s true nature—he was a man-eater, an Ongwe Ias.
One day a woman came to the nephew’s room. The next morning at dawn the uncle exclaimed, “My nephew has two ways of breathing.” The young man, speaking to himself, said: “My uncle is mistaken. I am only talking to myself.” “Oh!” said the old man, “My nephew can not deceive me. ”

“ I am glad my dear nephew finds pleasure in giving up so much of his valuable time to his dear sons; for my hair stands at an end on hearing what beings are continually expelled from our Eton here, all owing to ignorant ambitious parents trusting entirely to unprincipled hirelings. ”

“ Your little nephew not yet two and twenty months old prattles very intelligibly: he gives his duty to you and thanks for the toys, and desires me to tell his Aunt Polly that if she don't take a care and a great deal of pains in her learning, he will soon be the best scholar, for he can tell his letters in any book without hesitation, and begins to spell before he is two years old. ”

“ I am resolved to marry her to my nephew the Prince of Conde, and to keep her near my family. She will be the consolation and support of my old age into which I am now about to enter. I shall give my nephew, who loves the chase a thousand times better than he does ladies, 100,000 livres a year, and I wish no other favour from her than her affection without making further pretensions. ”