my hopes led me to imagine that this was some rich old fellow who might be inclined to leave me his money, and I resolved to humour him. I ́plied him with Rhenish till he cried for quarter, and then taking him to a summer-house I had in the garden, in which was a camp bed, I assisted him to undress, and there left him; but not till, by his desire, I had placed a light and a flask by his side, in case he should be dry in the night.

A hospitality of this sort being the practice of the neighbourhood, my wife was not the least surprised at what had passed, that is, at what she knew had passed, for the secret I kept to myself. It troubled my imagination, and would not suffer me to sleep. I rose early in the morning, and visited the stranger. The door was locked. I tapped gently, and hearing him move, made myself known to him through the key-hole. He was dressed, and instantly opened the door, then returned to his employment, which was this-He had closed all the shutters of the summer-house. There were, however, about eight inches between one shutter and the top of the window; and some branches of vines, with their grapes already ripe, hung in the room; these he was picking, and seemed to relish vastly. He had made a clearance of every thing else I had left him.

I now inquired how he had rested, and begged to know whether he chose to join my family at breakfast. To this he answered in a clearer but inarticulate tone, that he desired to be

concealed, and not to be seen by any one but myself. I bowed assent. He then signified his wish that I would step and put a flask of Rhenish in my pocket, and that we should go and take a walk together. I obeyed; and we proceeded silently till we came to a retired spot, where, seating ourselves upon a bank, he first broke silence to this effect.

"Count Reginald D'Orveau—am I right?—' Is that your name?"

"It is!" I answered with astonishment. "May I crave the favour of yours?"

"No!" he replied, "that you shall never know. Nor shall you ever be informed of any thing concerning mé but my secrets.'

"I confess I lament it," said I, "but I will ask to hear no more than you are pleased to unfold."

"My friend," resumed he, lifting a bumper to his lips, "your discretion pleases me, and I will be candid. My days are numbered. I know when I shall die, but I do not know what I shall die of. I am threatened with two things; the one I do not fear, the other I dread most terribly a paralytic stroke, or the dropsy. To die by a stroke, I should not mind; but to expire with the dropsy, to be killed by water, and that water in my belly, where none ever came before, gives me heartfelt uneasiness. ever these things we must leave to the Fates. To the point. The secrets I have to disclose are of the greatest magnitude. All I require of you, and you cannot possess them without;

How

is never to confide them to your wife, children, or any one."

"Upon these conditions," I replied, "I am sorry that I must decline your confidence. My wife is a part of myself."

Turning towards me a look of ineffable contempt, he exclaimed, "What! is your spirit then so base and pusillanimous, that you can tamely submit to a tyranny so weak and effeminate? Are you then incapable of acting alone? Must all your life be wasted in the gratification of a woman's whim; the plaything of her pleasures?-For shame! Be more a man."

I felt, I own, a strong inclination to give the old fellow a good threshing; but curiosity to learn his secrets, rendered me motionless and silent.

He went on:

"Farewell, D'Orveau: you think my secrets not worth knowing, and my benefits not worth your acceptance. Know that my benefits are such as kings would barter their thrones to purchase, and that my wealth exceeds the wealth of empires.

The sordid love of gold, which, planted in my heart, poisoned with baneful vegetation its nobler and more salubrious feelings, now acted with full force, and I cried, "Stop, mysterious stranger! grant me a moment's leisure to reflect and determine!"

"You do not merit it," said he, "but I grant it." We then finished our flask and returned home-he to the summer-house, and I, after

having provided him with all he wanted, to my wife and children.

At breakfast my thoughts dwelt so much on the secrets I was alone to hear, that my wife, Adelaide, unused to such an estrangement of my affection and attention, seemed hurt at my incommunicativeness, but taking her round the neck, I gave her a kiss, which instantly set all to rights.

A circumstance however happened at this time, which, though it may appear trifling to some, is so sweetly expressive of innocence, and so natural and unaffected, that I cannot pass it over. The reader may judge.

My little Marguerite, now eight years of age, had left a little book of Fairy Tales which she had been reading the day before in the summer-house. At first she did not know what was become of it; suddenly, however, she remembered where she had read it last; and exclaiming with exultation, "It is in the summerhouse," sprang forward to fetch it. I detained her, and told her there was a sick gentleman there that she would disturb. "But, my love," said I, "you shall have it after dinner."

"Ah, but, papa," said she, "I want it now. I put it away just where the naughty giant had shut up the gentleman in the dungeon who came to take away the lady. I was obliged to put it away then, because mamma called me to go to bed; but I want so to know what will become of them, you cannot think."

Finding her pertinacious in insisting upon a

topic that was disagreeable to me, her mother called her from me, and wiping away a tear at the innocent speech of her darling, kissed her, and bid her go and feed the hen and her chick

ens.

Neither Nature nor Shakspeare can go beyond this! And surely, the historian has no right to suppress such delicious scenes of sensibility and innocence!

CHAP. II.

AFTER breakfast, as usual, I and Charles went into the fields, to work, a thing which our circumstances would not permit us to neglect. Whether amusing myself, or labouring, my thoughts constantly ran on the stranger's secrets, of which he had told me enough to let me understand that enormous wealth was one

of the consequences of possessing them. Whilst digging, and turning this over in my mind, it suddenly occurred to me, and I wondered (as folks often do) I was so stupid as not to think of it before, that the man who talked of conferring all these riches and blessings on me,, was himself, apparently, a poor, miserable, unhappy