he, "withdraw not on my account. If I go to my chamber, it
will not be to sleep, but to meditate, especially after your assurance
that something of moment has occurred in my absence. My thoughts,
independently of any cause of sorrow or fear, have received an impulse
which solitude and darkness will not stop. It is impossible to know too
much for our safety and integrity, or to know it too soon. What has
happened?"

I did not hesitate to comply with his request, for it was not difficult
to conceive that, however tired the limbs might be, the adventures of
this day would not be easily expelled from the memory at night. I told
him the substance of the conversation with Mrs. Althorpe. He smiled at
those parts of the narrative which related to himself; but when his
father's depravity and poverty were mentioned, he melted into tears.

"Poor wretch! I, that knew thee in thy better days, might have easily
divined this consequence. I foresaw thy poverty and degradation in the
same hour that I left thy roof. My soul drooped at the prospect, but I
said, It cannot be prevented, and this reflection was an antidote to
grief; but, now that thy ruin is complete, it seems as if some of it
were imputable to me, who forsook thee when the succour and counsel of a
son were most needed. Thou art ignorant and vicious, but thou art my
father still. I see that the sufferings of a better man than thou art
would less afflict me than thine. Perhaps it is still in my power to
restore thy liberty and good name, and yet--that is a fond wish. Thou
art past the age when the ignorance and grovelling habits of a human
being are susceptible of cure." There he stopped, and, after a gloomy
pause, continued:--

* * * * *

I am not surprised or afflicted at the misconceptions of my neighbours
with relation to my own character. Men must judge from what they see;
they must build their conclusions on their knowledge. I never saw in the
rebukes of my neighbours any thing but laudable abhorrence of vice. They
were too eager to blame, to collect materials of censure rather than of
praise. It was not me whom they hated and despised. It was the phantom
that passed under my name, which existed only in their imagination, and
which was worthy of all their scorn and all their enmity.

What I appeared to be in their eyes was as much the object of my own
disapprobation as of theirs. Their reproaches only evinced the rectitude
of their de