insisted upon it; and I tried to
work myself into a passion. She got up; and looking me full in
the face, said sternly,

"'Don 't lie to me, Henry. I know you; I know what you have
done; I know what you mean to do, but God has sent me to save
you.'

"'None of your cant, Tracy,' I now exclaimed in a violent
passion; 'leave me; this moment leave me.'

"'Mr. Henry,' she said, 'do you remember _this?_' and she put
something into my hands.

"What a strange change is sometimes wrought in us in an
instant, Ellen! It was a small picture of my mother--of her
who died in giving me birth--of her whose image had often
stood between me and temptation, and delayed the ruin it could
not avert. I had given this miniature to Tracy, and had
charged her to keep it for me on the day when I first left
home for school. It brought back to my mind a train of
childish recollections, and vague reminiscences, which
completely overcame me. I pressed the picture to my lips. My
pride gave way; tears burst from my eyes; and in that moment
of emotion I confessed the whole truth to her. She had guessed
it all before.

"Her brother had been aware for some time past how deeply I
was involved in debt. He knew the state of my affairs, and
that I neither possessed, nor had the means of raising a
single shilling. Escourt, with whom he had some previous
acquaintance, had informed him, as they met at the door of the
office, that I had just paid him the large sum of L3,500.
These facts, coupled with my paleness and incoherence; my
pretending that the key was at my lodgings, while he perfectly
knew that my father had given it me a moment before in the
office; above all, my telling him that I was not going home,
and appointing him for the next morning, while, by dodging me
in the streets, he ascertained that I had gone straight
home;--all this had left no doubt in his mind as to the state
of the case; and his sister happening to be in town, and at
his house, he had imparted to her his surmises. All this she
repeated to me; and then, crossing her arms and standing
before mo, she said, 'And now what is to be done?'

"Upon this followed a conversation, all the details of which I
need not give you. It began by her suggesting a variety of
plans for extricating me from my difficulties, each one more
hopeless and more unfeasible than the other. It ended by her
proposing an arrangement, which she had long previously had in
contemplation, and which the event