"Well—well, sir: let me hope so! I do not wish to die with the word 'EXECUTIONER' traced upon my features. But I will continue my story. Harriet seemed firm in her generous purpose not to be the cause of my ruin: I however implored her to reflect upon the misery into which her decision would plunge me. I then left her. The next morning I heard that Wilmot and his daughter had departed from their house, and had gone—no one knew whither. Malignant people said that the old man was afraid to face his creditors in the local Bankruptcy-court: I thought otherwise. I felt persuaded that Harriet had prevailed upon her father, by some means or another, to leave;—and I now considered her lost to me for ever. My sorrow was great; but I redoubled my attention to business in order to distract my mind from contemplating the misfortune that had befallen me. Weeks and months passed away; and the wound in my heart was closed, but it was still painful. One day, during a temporary indisposition which confined my father to his room, I was turning over some papers in his desk, seeking for an invoice which I required, when I perceived a letter addressed to my father and signed _Joseph Wilmot_. The date especially attracted my attention, because I remembered that this letter must have been written on the very day that I had the last interview with Harriet. I hesitated not a moment to read it; and its contents revealed to me the cause of that precipitate departure which has so distressed me. Indeed, the letter was in answer to one which Wilmot acknowledged to have just before received from my father. It appears that my father had written to offer old Wilmot two hundred pounds if he would quit the town, with his daughters, and that Wilmot should give a note of hand for this amount, which security my father engaged himself not to enforce so long as Wilmot remained away and left me in ignorance of his future place of residence. Wilmot consented to this arrangement: he was a ruined man without a shilling; and he gladly availed himself of the means of embarking in business elsewhere. This stratagem on the part of my father I discovered through Wilmot's letter. I said nothing about the letter to my father: I concluded that he had merely acted under the impression that he was consulting my welfare; and moreover the injury appeared to be irrevocable. Well, sir—six months passed away after the departure of Wilmot and his daughter, and my father, who was usually so cautious and prudent, was induced to embark some money in the purchase of smuggled goods. The excise officers discovered the transaction; and a fine was imposed which swept away every farthing of the sum which my father had been accumulating by the industry and toil of years. It broke his heart: he died, and left me a ruined business, instead of a decent competence. I struggled on for a year, just keeping my head above water, but dreadfully crippled for want of capital. At length I learnt, from a