of those unexpected caprices of fortune which sometimes
find heirs to a millionnaire at the weaver's loom or the labourer's
plough, had suddenly, by the death of a very distant kinsman whom he had
never seen, come into possession of a small estate, which he sold for
6,000 pounds. Retiring from all his profession, he lived as comfortably
as his shattered constitution permitted upon the interest of this sum;
and he wrote to his nephew, then at Paris, to communicate the good news
and offer the hospitality of his hearth. Varney hastened to London.
Shortly afterwards a nurse, recommended as an experienced, useful person
in her profession, by Nicholas Grabman, who in many a tortuous scheme
had been Gabriel's confederate, was installed in the poor painter's
house. From that time his infirmities increased. He died, as his doctor
said, "by abstaining from the stimulants to which his constitution had
been so long accustomed;" and Gabriel Varney was summoned to the reading
of the will. To his inconceivable disappointment, instead of bequeathing
to his nephew the free disposal of his 6,000 pounds, that sum was
assigned to trustees for the benefit of Gabriel and his children yet
unborn,--"An inducement," said the poor testator, tenderly, "for the boy
to marry and reform!" So that the nephew could only enjoy the interest,
and had no control over the capital. The interest of 6,000 pounds
invested in the Bank of England was flocci nauci to the voluptuous
spendthrift, Gabriel Varney.

Now, these trustees were selected from the painter's earlier and more
respectable associates, who had dropped him, it is true, in his days of
beggary and disrepute, but whom the fortune that made him respectable
had again conciliated. One of these trustees had lately retired to pass
the remainder of his days at Boulogne; the other was a hypochondriacal
valetudinarian,--neither of them, in short, a man of business. Gabriel
was left to draw out the interest of the money as it became periodically
due at the Bank of England. In a few months the trustee settled at
Boulogne died; the trust, of course, lapsed to Mr. Stubmore, the
valetudinarian survivor. Soon pinched by extravagances, and emboldened
by the character and helpless state of the surviving trustee, Varney
forged Mr. Stubmore's signature to an order on the bank to sell out
such portion of the capital as his wants required. The impunity of one
offence begot courage for others, till the whole was well-nig