, but his gigantic
frame was as straight and his step as firm as ever. His wife, strange to
say, looked younger as she grew older! It seemed as if she were
recovering from some terrible illness that had made her prematurely old,
and were now renewing her youth. The business prospered to such an
extent that, by becoming altogether too wonderful, it ceased to be a
matter of wonder altogether to the merchants of the Green Isle. They
regarded it as semi-miraculous,--the most unprecedented case of "luck"
that had ever been heard of in the annals of mercantile history.

But the rich merchant still dwelt in the humble, almost mean cottage,
and still wrought as an engineer and shipwright with his own hands.

In the little cottage beside his own there were soon seen (and _heard_)
three stout children, two boys and a girl, the former being named
respectively Gascoyne and Henry, the latter Mary. It is needless to say
that these were immense favorites with the eccentric merchant.

During all this time there was a firm in Liverpool which received
periodical remittances of money from an unknown source. The cashier of
that firm, a fat little man, with a face like a dumpling and a nose like
a cherry, lived, as it were, in a state of perpetual amazement in regard
to these remittances. They came regularly, from apparently nowhere, were
acknowledged to nobody, and amounted, in the course of time, to many
thousands. This firm had, some years previously, lost a fine vessel. She
was named the Brilliant; had sailed for the South Sea Islands with a
rich cargo, and was never more heard of. The fat cashier knew the loss
sustained by this vessel to a penny. He had prepared and calculated all
the papers and sent duplicates on board; and as he had a stake in the
venture, he never forgot the amount of the loss sustained.

One day the firm received a remittance from the unknown, with a note to
the following effect at the foot of it: "This is the last remittance on
account of the Brilliant. The value of the cargo, including compound
interest, and the estimated value of the vessel, have now been repaid to
the owners."

The fat cashier was thunderstruck! He rushed to his ledger, examined the
account, calculated the interest, summed up the whole, and found it
correct. He went home to bed, and fell sound asleep in amazement; awoke
in amazement; went back to the office in amazement; worked on day after
day in amazement; lived, and eventually died, in a