the fair; be this as it may, the question filled me with embarrassment, and I bitterly repented not having at first been more explicit. Thereupon the magistrate, in the same kind of tone, demanded to see my pocket-book. I knew that to demur would be useless, and produced it, and therewith, amongst two or three small country notes, appeared the fourth which I had received from the Horncastle dealer. The agent took it up and examined it with attention. ‘Well, is it a genuine note?’ asked the magistrate. ‘I am sorry to say that it is not,’ said the agent; ‘it is a forgery, like the other three.’ The magistrate shrugged his shoulders, as indeed did several people in the room. ‘A regular dealer in forged notes,’ said a person close behind me; ‘who would have thought it?’ “Seeing matters begin to look so serious, I aroused myself, and endeavoured to speak in my own behalf, giving a candid account of the manner in which I became possessed of the notes, but my explanation did not appear to meet much credit. The magistrate, to whom I have in particular alluded, asked, why I had not at once stated the fact of my having received a fourth note; and the agent, though in a very quiet tone, observed that he could not help thinking it somewhat strange that I should have changed a note of so much value for a perfect stranger, even supposing that he had purchased my horses, and had paid me their value in hard cash; and I noticed that he laid particular emphasis on the last words. I might have observed that I was an inexperienced young man, who, meaning no harm myself, suspected none in others, but I was confused, stunned, and my tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of my mouth. The men who had taken my horses to Horncastle, and for whom I had sent, as they lived close at hand, now arrived, but the evidence which they could give was anything but conclusive in my favour; they had seen me in company with an individual at Horncastle, to whom, by my orders, they had delivered certain horses, but they had seen no part of the money transaction; the fellow, whether from design or not, having taken me aside into a retired place, where he had paid me three spurious notes, and induced me to change the fourth, which throughout the affair was what bore most materially against me. How matters might have terminated I do not know; I might have gone to prison, and I might have been— Just then, when I most needed a friend, and least expected to find one, for though amongst those present there were several who were my neighbours, and who had professed friendship for me, none of them when they saw that I needed support and encouragement, came forward to yield me any, but, on the contrary, appeared by their looks to enjoy my terror and confusion—just then a friend entered the room in the person of the surgeon of the neighbourhood, the father of him who has attended you; he was not on very intimate terms with me, but he had occasionally spoken to me, and had