Edward had taken his measures with no less secrecy than judgement. None of the servants, foremen, or even of the overseers knew that he was doing anything out in the warehouse. Every interruption had been guarded against. He was quite alone, nor did anybody even know of his having left the house, when he made his arrangements; and it was dark before he came back. He could not tell whether a fresh robbery might not be committed on that very night, or not till a future one. All the watchmen had been removed from the warehouse in such a manner as not to excite suspicion. And now amid the solitude of the night he sat down to the account books, for the sake of bringing all his thoughts to bear on a single point, and thereby recovering from the agitation he had lately undergone. It was of importance to have these matters perfectly arranged before he went away. At length he succeeded in banishing what had happened from his thoughts for the time; and he became so much engaged in his employment, he forgot that these very hours might be unravelling that unpleasant affair, which had given them so much annoyance for years. When he had finisht and was turning over the leaves of an old book that he had taken up along with the rest, some written papers fell out of it: they were in Balthasar's hand, and had evidently been written many years. He read the following fragments. Yes in truth weeping is a wonder, and, as they say, a gift sent from heaven. A bliss spreads through our soul, as soon as our flowing tears come, like the waters of a river, sweeping away black sorrow, and disquietude, and trembling doubts. Ye are all given back to me, ye spirits that once were mine, and that a cruel destiny afterward severed from me. For the sake of this, people will woo tears, and try to lure them with coaxing when they will not come. Our day's work is over, and now, as the rich man and the glutton will wind up his multifarious meal with sweetmeats, so after our toil, after closing our accounts, we court devotional thoughts and pathetical emotions, we meditate on the dead, in order to entice this lifes-wine of tears into our voluptuous eyes and our luxurious brain. Now a sentimental melancholy inhaloes every ordinary object around us; and amid the meek abasht feelings of a pining anguish and remorse, suddenly starts up nauseous arrogance, vaunting the grandeur of a spoilt capricious heart. O what poor wretches our fellow creatures now seem to us in their commonplaceness, who yet all, as the patient children and drudges of mother earth, are better than we.