him highly successful in his profession;
and his affectionate anxiety to provide for the future of those who
were dependent on his labours had impelled him, from the time of his
marriage, to devote to the insuring of his life a much larger portion
of his income than most men consider it necessary to set aside for that
purpose. Thanks to his admirable prudence and self-denial my mother
and sister were left, after his death, as independent of the world as
they had been during his lifetime. I succeeded to his connection, and
had every reason to feel grateful for the prospect that awaited me at
my starting in life.

The quiet twilight was still trembling on the topmost ridges of the
heath; and the view of London below me had sunk into a black gulf in
the shadow of the cloudy night, when I stood before the gate of my
mother's cottage. I had hardly rung the bell before the house door was
opened violently; my worthy Italian friend, Professor Pesca, appeared
in the servant's place; and darted out joyously to receive me, with a
shrill foreign parody on an English cheer.

On his own account, and, I must be allowed to add, on mine also, the
Professor merits the honour of a formal introduction. Accident has made
him the starting-point of the strange family story which it is the
purpose of these pages to unfold.

I had first become acquainted with my Italian friend by meeting him at
certain great houses where he taught his own language and I taught
drawing. All I then knew of the history of his life was, that he had
once held a situation in the University of Padua; that he had left
Italy for political reasons (the nature of which he uniformly declined
to mention to any one); and that he had been for many years respectably
established in London as a teacher of languages.

Without being actually a dwarf--for he was perfectly well proportioned
from head to foot--Pesca was, I think, the smallest human being I ever
saw out of a show-room. Remarkable anywhere, by his personal
appearance, he was still further distinguished among the rank and file
of mankind by the harmless eccentricity of his character. The ruling
idea of his life appeared to be, that he was bound to show his
gratitude to the country which had afforded him an asylum and a means
of subsistence by doing his utmost to turn himself into an Englishman.
Not content with paying the nation in general the compliment of
invariably carrying an umbrella, and invariably weari