Unable to extract more from a man who hourly assumed with me more of _respect_ as well as of _authority_, I yielded to his control. I was still lame and helpless; and except the diminished sum with which your brother had furnished me, I had no resources for my premeditated plan. Simons soothed me, by conducting me to the post-office, where I deposited a letter for you, and his orders taken, to forward all letters to our address at Cadiz, to a house of business sufficiently ostensible to gain him attention with the people at the office. We prepared immediately for our departure for Amsterdam, when he entered the apartment with an opened letter in his hand. “I thought how it would be,” said he, “your cursed accident, and the delay it has occasioned will oblige me to go the whole voyage with you. Your father’s agent is too ill for the voyage; he has sent me bills of “exchange;” he displayed the notes, and urged me to lose no time. He is, I find, in the country; and dangerously ill. However, I am embarked, and will not desert you. At Amsterdam I was again surprised. This _Proteus_ spoke the Spanish tongue well, and in his conversation with the captain of a Spanish ship bound for Cadiz, I perceived that he assumed the gravity and stateliness of a Spanish grandee. On the man’s leaving us, after having settled the terms for our accommodation, I mentioned my surprise, on finding him so qualified for a traveller.” “I lived on the continent some time in my young days,” answered he. “I was private secretary to an ambassador, who in his lack of brains, forgot to pay me for the five years use he made of mine; he taught me a lesson however which I wanted,” continued he with a malicious grin, “namely, to live by my own wit; and to regard every man either as a fool or a knave.” It required very little judgment, my dear Harriet, to determine the class to which Simons belonged; yet in spite of his habitual vulgarity, and coarse language, I hourly perceived that he had moved in a different sphere, and could at his pleasure assume the gentleman. He spoke of me as a Spaniard by birth, and by the respect he showed me, taught those about me to consider me as of importance; performing the part of my governor; and making no secret of my having been a stranger to my rank, parents, and country, from nearly the hour I was born. These hints were needless, to stimulate a curiosity constantly on the fullest stretch. To my questions I received only one answer: “I am bound to secresy, and it is for _my interest_ to be faithful. Have patience, time will discover all to you.” Thus goaded on, and convinced of my inability of securing him in my interest; having exhausted my own little stock of money, and depending, in a strange country upon Simons for pecuniary assistance, I left Amsterdam without having received letters from you; and in the anguish of my soul I sought relief from the hope of meeting with protection, and