To make my confusion still greater, the door suddenly opened, and in rushed my nephew Jonathan, dressed, like a dandy of the first water, in a blue cloth coat with shining buttons, white trousers, and satin waistcoat, and exclaiming "Bravo!" and "Victoria!" as if a very demon of joy and exultation possessed him. As soon as he beheld me he ran forward, snatched one of my hands from the maiden, and, dropping on his knees, cried, with a comical look of contrition,-- "Forgive me all my sins, uncle Zachariah, and I'll behave better for the future." "Oh thou ungrateful wretch!" said I, "how canst thou look me in the face, having ruined me?" "Don't say so!" cried Ellen Wild; "you don't know how Jonathan has saved you." "The deuse he don't!" said Jonathan, jumping up; "why then we've got the play all wrong. I say, uncle, don't look so solemn and wrathful. You are no more ruined than I am, and you are out of the clutches of the harpy!" "Haven't I been swindled?" said I. "Unutterably!" said Jonathan; "but, as the swindler has been swindled also, there's no great harm done. Uncle Zachariah, a'n't you satisfied Abel Snipe is a rascal?" "I am," said I; "but what shall I say of thee?" "That I have broken the spell the villain cast over your senses," said Jonathan, "and so saved you from the ruin your confidence invited him to attempt. Uncle Zachariah, you think I am as bad as Abel. Now listen to my story. I knew that Abel Snipe was a rogue and hypocrite, but could not make you believe it; I saw that he was daily fleecing you of sums of money under pretence of giving to the poor; that he was artfully goading and inflaming your benevolence into a passion, nay, into a _monomania_ (for, uncle, everybody said you were mad), for his own base purposes; and that, sooner or later, he would strip you of every thing. This I could not make you believe; I resolved you should see it. I turned hypocrite myself, and began to fleece you ten times harder than Abel. The rogue was alarmed; he perceived I was ousting him from his employment--that I had greater facilities for cheating (having more of your affection) than himself. His alarm, added to another feeling which you shall hear all about, brought him into the trap from which cautiousness at first secured him. I convinced him I was as great a rogue as himself, and he then agreed with me--yes, uncle, formally agreed--to join in a plan to strip you of fortune. We arranged the whole scheme from beginning to end--the business, the speculations, the bankruptcy. Abel was to play Sir Smash--his reputation could stand it. The sums received from you were to be handed over to me, and accounted for as lost in bad speculations; to make which appear straight, his books were filled with fictitious sales and purchases, very ingeniously got up. After the grand crash we were to make a division of the plunder, he being content, honest man, to receive one fourth, of which