"I have received your two long letters, my dear Etherington, with equal surprise and interest; for what I knew of your Scottish adventures before, was by no means sufficient to prepare me for a statement so perversely complicated. The Ignis Fatuus which, you say, governed your father, seems to have ruled the fortunes of your whole house, there is so much eccentricity in all that you have told me. But _n'importe_, Etherington, you were my friend--you held me up when I was completely broken down; and, whatever you may think, my services are at your command much more from reflections on the past, than hopes for the future. I am no speechmaker, but this you may rely on while I continue to be Harry Jekyl. You have deserved some love at my hands, Etherington, and you have it. "Perhaps I love you the better since your perplexities have become known to me; for, my dear Etherington, you were before too much an object of envy to be entirely an object of affection. What a happy fellow! was the song of all who named you. Bank, and a fortune to maintain it--luck sufficient to repair all the waste that you could make in your income, and skill to back that luck, or supply it should it for a moment fail you.--The cards turning up as if to your wish--the dice rolling, it almost seemed, at your wink--it was rather your look than the touch of your cue that sent the ball into the pocket. You seemed to have fortune in chains, and a man of less honour would have been almost suspected of helping his luck by a little art.--You won every bet; and the instant that you were interested, one might have named the winning horse--it was always that which you were to gain most by.--You never held out your piece but the game went down--and then the women!--with face, manners, person, and, above all, your tongue--what wild work have you made among them!--Good heaven! and have you had the old sword hanging over your head by a horsehair all this while?--Has your rank been doubtful?--Your fortune unsettled?--And your luck, so constant in every thing else, has that, as well as your predominant influence with the women, failed you, when you wished to form a connexion for life, and when the care of your fortune required you to do so?--Etherington, I am astonished!--The Mowbray scrape I always thought an inconvenient one, as well as the quarrel with this same Tyrrel, or Martigny; but I was far from guessing the complicated nature of your perplexities.