Harry Wilford had been so unlucky as to come into possession of a large fortune as soon as he attained his majority. I am not in error, gentle reader, when I say he was _unlucky_, for daily experience bears witness to the fact, that in this country, at least in nine cases out of ten, a large inheritance is a great misfortune. The records of gay life in every large city prove that the most useless, most ignorant, most vicious, and often the most degraded among the youth, are usually the sons of plodding and hoarding parents, who have pawned health and happiness, aye, and sometimes _integrity_—the very life of the soul—to procure the gold which brings the destruction of their children. Wilford had passed through college with the reputation of being one of the most gifted and most indolent of scholars, while his eccentric fits of study, which served to give him the highest rank in his class, only showed how much more he might have done, if industry and perseverance had been allowed to direct his pursuits. Like his career in the university had been his course through life. With much latent energy of character he was too infirm of purpose to become distinguished either for virtue or talent. The curse of Ephraim seemed to have fallen upon the child of prosperity, and the impressive words of the ancient Patriarch: “Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel,” might have shadowed forth his destiny. His fine talents were wasted in empty witticisms; his classical taste only served to direct his lavish expenditure, and his really noble feelings were frittered away in hollow friendship, or in transitory attachments. Handsome, brilliant, and, above all, rich, he became the idol of a coterie, and intoxicated by the incense which smoked before him, he did not perceive that its subtle influence enervated all his nobler faculties. Yet Wilford had escaped the contagion of vice. The dark stain of criminal excess, which too often sullies the cloth of gold more deeply than it does the coat of frieze, had never fallen upon his garments. He could not forget the trembling hand which had been laid upon his infant head when he offered up his innocent prayers at a mother’s knee. He remembered her dying supplication that her child might be kept “unspotted from the world,” and her gentle face, beaming with unutterable purity and love, often interposed itself between his and his tempter, when his heart would have failed from very weakness.