When I became a little acquainted with the past history of my companion, I might reasonably have been expected to object to the partnership. From his own account, he was born to ill-luck: and, such being the case, I could scarce hope that fortune would favour me--so long as I was in his company. Assuredly was Richard Guinane the victim of unfortunate circumstances. There are many such in the world, though few whom Fortune will not sometimes favour with her smiles--when they are deserved; and, ofttimes, when they are not. Richard Guinane, according to his own account of himself, was one of these few. Circumstances seemed to have been always against him. Each benevolent, or praiseworthy action he might perform, appeared to the world as dictated by some base and selfish feeling! Whenever he attempted to confer a favour, the effort resulted in an injury, to those whom he meant to benefit. Whenever he tried to win a friend, it ended by his making an enemy! His hopes of happiness had ever proved delusive--his anticipations of misery were always realised! Pride, honour, in short, every noble feeling that man should possess, appeared to be his; and yet fate so controlled those sentiments, that each manifestation of them seemed, to the world, the reverse of the true motive that inspired it. Such was Guinane's character--partly drawn from statements furnished by himself, and partly from facts that came under my own observation. Certain circumstances of his life, which he made known to me, had produced an impression on my memory; but more especially those of which I was myself a spectator, and which brought his unhappy existence to an abrupt and tragical termination. The history of his life is too strange to be left unrecorded. Richard Guinane was a native of New York State, where his father died before he was quite five years of age--leaving a wife and three children, of whom Dick was the eldest. So early had Dick's ill-fortune made its appearance, that before he had reached his fourteenth year, he had established the reputation of being the greatest thief and liar in his native village! When once this character became attached to him, no church window could be broken, nor any other mischief occur, that was not attributed to Dick Guinane, although, according to his own account, he was really the best behaved boy in the place! Near the residence of his mother, lived the widow of a merchant, who had left a small fortune to his only child, a daughter--the widow having the sole charge both of the fortune and the heiress--already a half grown girl.