“A vicious career soon finds its termination. The mode by which young Clifford had hitherto obtained supplies at last became unavailing, and criminal means were cautiously proposed by his villanous confederates. From these the youth recoiled with horror--his guardian angel had not yet deserted him; and, like another prodigal, he half determined to fall at his father’s feet, and ask him to bless and pardon. That blessing was ready had he sought it--but the moment of penitence had passed. One, with an angel form and demon heart, had thrown her spells around him; and all that remained of moral principle, she, the foul temptress, gradually extinguished. In a desperate emergency young Clifford committed forgery, affixing to securities of immense amount, his father’s name. In due time the criminal act was discovered, and to the agonized parent one alternative alone was left--to pay an enormous sum to the villains who had demoralized him, or denounce his child a felon, and consign him to a felon’s doom. He sacrificed the money. Did the mischief end there? No;--the misguided young man was now the victim of a gang of swindlers--the puppet of a coldblooded courtesan. Deeper and deeper they involved him, and at last, when their own detection was impending, they made him a scapegoat to their safety, and denounced their dupe for crimes which they had themselves committed, and of which he, poor wretch, was guiltless. “The fallen have no friends; and your uncle was obliged to evade the penalty which the law would have then exacted, by abandoning the country of his birth, to seek ignominious safety in a foreign land. There--he lived and died--a nameless fugitive. Heaven knows in what misery the remnant of his few and evil days were passed,--or, when the hour of deliverance came, under what fearful circumstances death claimed a willing victim.” Mr. Hartley paused; the story of my unfortunate relative had affected me, and I expressed strong sympathy for the offender. “Well,” continued he, “it is probable that his punishment was greater than his crime; but of that none but himself could tell. To proceed:--from the moment young Clifford quitted England, his father, by a mental exertion that almost appeal’s incredible, seemed to forget that he had ever had a son, and centered all his hopes and his affections in the child still spared him; and your mother became the object that he lived for. There, too, it was decreed that his hopes and plans should be disappointed. He had resolved to ally her nobly; but his air-built castle was levelled to the earth. She eloped with a soldier of fortune; and worse still, in the estimation of one so deeply bigoted to his own faith, the husband she had selected was a Protestant.