He earnestly intreated my prayers, adding, "though it is presumption in so unworthy a being as I am, to suppose his intercession may be heard, I will pray for a blessing on your happy prospects. A connection with such a family is itself a blessing. Oh! that my nephew had been worthy of it! It is to recommend that poor youth to your friendship, that I invited you to this melancholy visit. I call him poor, because I have neglected to enrich his mind: but he will have too much of this world's goods. May he employ well what I have risked my soul to amass! Counsel him, dear sir; admonish him. Recall to his mind his dying uncle. I would now give my whole estate, nay, I would live upon the alms I have refused, to purchase one more year, though spent in pain and misery, that I might prove the sincerity of my repentance. Be to Ned what my blessed friend Stanley would have been to me. But my pride repelled his kindness. I could not bear his superiority, I turned away my eyes from a model I could not imitate." I now intreated him to spare himself, but after a few minutes' pause he proceeded: "As to Ned, I trust he is not ill-disposed, but I have neither furnished his mind for solitude, nor fortified his heart for the world. I foolishly thought that to keep him ignorant, was to keep him safe. I have provided for him the snare of a large fortune, without preparing him for the use of it. I fell into an error not uncommon, that of grudging the expenses of education to a relation, for whom I designed my estate. I have thus fitted him for a companion to the vulgar, and a prey to the designing. I thought it sufficient to keep him from actual vice, without furnishing him with arguments to combat it, or with principles to abhor it." Here the poor man paused for want of breath. I was too much affected to speak. At length he went on. "I have made over to Dr. Barlow's son two thousand pounds for completing his education. I have also given two thousand pounds apiece to the two elder daughters of Mr. Stanley in aid of their charities. I have made a deed of gift of this, and of a large sum for charitable purposes at the discretion of my executors. A refusal to accept it, will greatly distress me. Ned still will have too much left, unless he employs it to better purposes than I have done." Though deeply moved, I hardly knew what to reply; I wished to give him comfort, but distrusted my own judgment as to the manner. I promised my best services to his nephew.