hen, in
letting him proceed in his intentions regarding Mrs. Walworth, when she
possibly was the woman who----I paused and tried to call up her
countenance before me. It was a sweet one and possibly a true one. I
might have trusted her for myself, but I do not look for perfection and
Taylor does, and will certainly go to the bad if he is deceived in his
expectations. But in a week! It is too late for interference--only it is
never too late till the knot is tied. As I thought of this, I decided
impulsively, and perhaps you may say unwisely, to give him a hint of his
danger, and I did it in this wise.

"Taylor," said I, when I had him safely in my own rooms, "I am going to
tell you a bit of personal history, curious enough I think to interest
you even upon the eve of your marriage. I do not know when I shall see
you again, and I should like you to know how a lawyer and a man of the
world can sometimes be taken in."

He nodded, accepting the situation good-humoredly, though I saw by the
abstraction with which he gazed into the fire, that I should have to be
very interesting to lure him from the thoughts that engrossed him. As I
meant to be very interesting, this did not greatly concern me.

"One morning last spring," I began, "I received in my morning mail a
letter, the delicate penmanship of which at once attracted my attention
and awakened my curiosity. Turning to the signature, I read the name of
a young lady friend of mine, and, somewhat startled at the thought that
this was the first time I had ever seen the handwriting of one I knew so
well, I perused the letter with an interest that presently became
painful as I realized the tenor of its contents. I will not quote the
letter, though I could, but confine myself to saying that after a modest
recognition of my friendship for her--quite a fatherly friendship, I
assure you, as she is only eighteen and I, as you know, am well on
toward fifty--she proceeded to ask, in an humble and confiding spirit,
for the loan--do not start--of fifty dollars. Such a request coming from
a young girl, well connected, and with every visible sign of being
generously provided for by her father, was certainly startling to an old
bachelor of settled ways and strict notions, but remembering her youth
and the childish innocence of her manner, I turned over the page and
read as her reason for proffering such a request, that her heart was set
upon aiding a certain poor family that stood in immedi