I told him, and he continued. "You have felt then the lightning shock that has altered the very face of nature. Earth, before and after that event, is not the same. It never was to human being yet. It cannot be. What a secret is learnt upon that day! How tottering and insecure have become the things of life that seemed so firm and fixed! The penalty is heavy which we pay for the privilege to be our own master. Oh, the desolation of a fatherless home! My father died, having made no will. So it was said at first--but in a few days there was another version. My mother's brother--the uncle that I spoke of--then appeared upon the stage, and was most active for his sister's interests. He had never been a friend of my father's. They had not spoken for years. I did not know why. I had never enquired--for the man was a stranger to me, and since my birth he had not crossed our threshold. My father believed that his relative had wronged him--of this I was sure--and I hated him therefore when he appeared. When my father was buried, this man produced a will. I was present when it was read--bodily present; but my heart and soul were away with him in the grave--and with him, sir, in heaven, beyond it. They told me at the conclusion of the ceremony, that my father had died worth fifty thousand pounds--that he had left my mother the bulk of his property--to my sister a fortune of ten thousand pounds, and to me the sum of a hundred and fifty pounds per annum. But they might have talked to stone. What cared my young and inexperienced, and still bleeding heart, for particulars and sums? A crust without him was more than enough. It was more than I could swallow now--and what was _wealth_ to me? My uncle, I heard afterwards, watched me as the different items were read over, and seemed pleased to observe upon my face no sign of disappointment. That he was pleased, I am certain, for he spoke kindly to me when all was over, and said that I was a good boy, and should be taken care of. "-Taken care of-!"--and so I was--and so I am--for look about you, sir, and observe the evidences of my uncle's love. The clerk, to whom I have alluded, took an early opportunity to remind me of the nature of my father's will--and to hint to me suspicions of foul play. I readily believed him. It was not that I cared for the money. At that age I was ignorant of its value, and my little portion seemed a mine of wealth. But I wished to dislike my uncle, because he had given pain to my dear father. I avoided his presence as much as I could, and I made him feel that my aversion was hearty. We never became _friends_. We seldom spoke--and never but when obliged. He was a coarse man then--I have not seen him for many years--ungentlemanly and unfeeling in his deportment. It would have been as easy for him to alter the framework of his body as to have shown regard for the sensibilities of other men. He lived to amass. He counts his tens of thousands now--they may have been scraped