he considered himself secure enough as long as I had any value for good name or fear of the penitentiary. Now you may wonder how such a cautious rogue could be so easily gulled. Here stands the fairy," said Jonathan, pointing to the maid Ellen, "who dazzled the eyes of his wisdom. Yes, uncle, would you believe it? the impudent, the audacious fellow had the vanity to think he had found favour in her eyes, at a time when I had lost favour in those of her father. You must know we had a coolness--that is, father Wild and I; it was about you--that confounded philanthropy--but we'll say nothing of that. I used to communicate with Ellen by letter, and Abel was often my Ganymede. Now, you must know, Ellen is a coquette--' "Fy, Jonathan!" said the damsel; "it was all that vicious Abel's presumption and folly. Because I was glad to see him, and treated him well, just because he brought me letters--oh, the monster! I soon saw what was running in his head!" "Yes," said Jonathan, "Ellen's a much smarter girl than people suppose her." "Oh! you great Quaker bear!" said the maiden. "Well," continued Jonathan, "she boasted her conquest, and then I saw I had the ogre by the nose. It was this put me upon turning swindler; I had a talk with father Wild, who approved my plan, and Ellen agreed to cultivate Abel's good opinion as far as a smile or two. We affected to quarrel; I began to coquet with another, abusing poor Ellen to Abel as hard as I could, until he was persuaded the breach between us was incurable. Ellen gave him a smile--her papa became condescending. In a word, the rascal thought nothing was wanting to make him the happiest man in the world, save the one full fourth of his patron's estate, and as much more as he could cheat me of. Here was the rock upon which Abel split, and split he has; he is now safe. The moment matters came to a crisis, which was this afternoon, I ran to a magistrate--my friend Jones there" (pointing to an elderly gentleman who had entered with him), "and made confession of our roguery; deposed the whole matter; accused myself and Abel of conspiracy to defraud, and so forth, and so forth; and was admitted to the honourable privileges of evidence for the commonwealth, and allowed to walk about on bail, while my rascally colleague takes up his lodgings in prison. There's the whole story; I have exposed Snipe's rogueries, and secured his conviction; and, what is equally agreeable, I have saved your property. Here, uncle--you called me a viper--I only wanted to make you believe I could be ungrateful, as well as others. By-the-way, that was a plan of father Wild's, to have your friends refuse to assist you; they were let into the secret, and I recommended you to apply to them. Here, uncle, you'll see what a viper I am," he continued, a little impetuously; "here are the deeds for the house; here is a roll of bank-notes I cheated you of, to play the philanthropist; you will be surprised at the amount,