escape undetected, and so I affected to busy
myself with some articles of his luggage that
lay scattered about the room until I could
manage to slip away.

"Touch nothing, my good fellow!" cried he,
angrily; " send my own people here for these
things. Let my courier come here—or my valet ."'

This was too good an opportunity to be
thrown away, and I made at once for the door,
but at the same instant it was opened, and Mary
Crofton stood before me. One glance showed
me that I was discovered, and there I stood,
speechless with shame and confusion. Rallying,
however, after a moment, I whispered, " Don't
betray me," and tried to pass out. Instead of
minding my entreaty, she set her back to the
door, and laughingly cried out to her brother,

"Don't you know whom we have got here?"

"What do you mean?" exclaimed he.

"Cannot you recognise an old friend,
notwithstanding all his efforts to cut us?"

"Why— what—surely it can't be—it's not
possible—eh?" And by this time he had wheeled
me round to the strong light of the window, and
then, with a loud burst, ne cried out, "Potts,
by all that's ragged! Potts himself! Why, old
fellow, what could you mean by wanting to
escape us?" and he wrung my hand with a
cordial shake that at once brought the blood
back to my heart, while his sister completed my
happiness by saying,

"If you only knew all the schemes we have
planned to catch you, you would certainly not
have tried to avoid us."

I made an effort to say something—anything,
in short—but not a word would come. If I was
overjoyed at the warmth of their greeting, I was
no less overwhelmed with shame; and there I
stood, looking very pitiably from one to the
other, and almost wishing that I might faint
outright, and so finish my misery.

With a woman's fine tact, Mary Crofton
seemed to read the meaning of my suffering,
and, whispering one word in her brother's ear,
she slipped away and left us alone together.

"Come," said he good naturedly, as he drew
his arm inside of mine, and led me up and down
the room, " tell me all about it. How have you
come here? What are you doing?"

I have not the faintest recollection of what I
said. I know that I endeavoured to take up my
story from the day I had last seen him, but it
must have proved a very strange and bungling
narrative, from the questions which he was forced
occasionally to put, in order to follow me out.

"Well," said he, at last, " I will own to you
that, after your abrupt departure, I was sorely
puzzled what to make of you, and I might have
remained longer in the same state of doubt,
when a chance visit that I made to Dublin led
me to Dycer's, and there, by a mere accident, I
heard of you—heard who you were, and where
your father lived. I went at once and called
upon him, my object being to learn if he had
any tidings of you, and where you then were.
I found him no better informed than myself.
He showed me a few lines you had written on
the morning you left home, stating that you
would probably be absent some days, and might
be even weeks, but that since that date nothing
had been heard of you. He seemed vexed and
displeased, but not uneasy or apprehensive about
your absence, and the same tone I observed
in our college tutor, Doctor Tobin. He said :
' Potts will come back, sir, one of these days,
and not a whit wiser than he went. His self-
esteem is to his capacity, in the reduplicate ratio
of the inverse proportion of his ability, and he
will be always a fool.' I wrote to various friends
of ours travelling about the world, but none had
met with you ; and at last, when about to come
abroad myself, I called again on your father, and
found him just re-married."

"Re-married!"

"Yes! he was lonely, he said, and wanted
companionship, and so on; and all I could obtain
from him was a note for a hundred pounds, and
a promise that, if you came back within the
year, you should share the business of his shop
with him."

"Never! never!" said I. "Potts may be
the fool they deem him, but there are instincts
and promptings in his secret heart that they
know nothing of. I will never go back. Go on."

"I now come to my own story. I left Ireland
a day or two after and came to England, where
business detained me some weeks. My uncle had
died and left me his heir—not, indeed, so rich
as I had expected, but very well off for a man
who had passed his life on very moderate means.
There were a few legacies to be paid, and one
which he especially entrusted to me by a secret
paper, in the hope that, by delicate and judicious
management, I might be able to persuade the
person in whose interest it was bequeathed to
accept. It was, indeed, a task of no common
difficulty, the legatee being the widow of a man
who had, by my uncle's cruelty, been driven to
destroy himself. It is a long story, which I cannot
now enter upon; enougn that I say it had
been a trial of strength between two very
vindictive unyielding men which should crush the
other, and my uncle being the richer—and not
from any other reason—conquered.

"The victory was a very barren one. It
embittered every hour of his life after, and the only
reparation in his power he attempted on his
death-bed, which was to settle an annuity on
the family of the man he had ruined. I found
out at once where they lived, and set about effecting
this delicate charge. I will not linger over
my failure—but it was complete. The family
was in actual distress, but nothing would induce
them to listen to the project of assistance; and,
in fact, their indignation compelled me to retire
from the attempt in despair. My sister did her
utmost in the cause, but equally in vain, and we
prepared to leave the place, much depressed and
cast down by our failure. It was on the last
evening of our stay at the inn of the little
village, a townsman of the place, whom I had
employed to aid my attempt by his personal
influence with the family, asked to see me and
speak with me in private.