“But what I want you to be, Trot,” resumed my aunt, “⁠—I don’t mean physically, but morally; you are very well physically⁠—is, a firm fellow. A fine firm fellow, with a will of your own. With resolution,” said my aunt, shaking her cap at me, and clenching her hand. “With determination. With character, Trot⁠—with strength of character that is not to be influenced, except on good reason, by anybody, or by anything. That’s what I want you to be. That’s what your father and mother might both have been, Heaven knows, and been the better for it.”

I intimated that I hoped I should be what she described.

“That you may begin, in a small way, to have a reliance upon yourself, and to act for yourself,” said my aunt, “I shall send you upon your trip, alone. I did think, once, of Mr. Dick’s going with you; but, on second thoughts, I shall keep him to take care of me.”