r, my recollections begin with the
deaths of two foreign gentlemen, in two different countries, on the same
day of the same year.

They were both men of some importance in their way, and both strangers to
each other.

Mr. Ephraim Wagner, merchant (formerly of Frankfort-on-the-Main), died in
London on the third day of September, 1828.

Doctor Fontaine--famous in his time for discoveries in experimental
chemistry--died at Wurzburg on the third day of September, 1828.

Both the merchant and the doctor left widows. The merchant's widow (an
Englishwoman) was childless. The doctor's widow (of a South German
family) had a daughter to console her.

At that distant time--I am writing these lines in the year 1878, and
looking back through half a century--I was a lad employed in Mr. Wagner's
office. Being his wife's nephew, he most kindly received me as a member
of his household. What I am now about to relate I saw with my own eyes
and heard with my own ears. My memory is to be depended on. Like other
old men, I recollect events which happened at the beginning of my career
far more clearly than events which happened only two or three years
since.

Good Mr. Wagner had been ailing for many months; but the doctors had no
immediate fear of his death. He proved the doctors to be mistaken; and
took the liberty of dying at a time when they all declared that there was
every reasonable hope of his recovery. When this affliction fell upon his
wife, I was absent from the office in London on a business errand to our
branch-establishment at Frankfort-on-the-Main, directed by Mr. Wagner's
partners. The day of my return happened to be the day after the funeral.
It was also the occasion chosen for the reading of the will. Mr. Wagner,
I should add, had been a naturalized British citizen, and his will was
drawn by an English lawyer.

The fourth, fifth, and sixth clauses of the will are the only portions of
the document which it is necessary to mention in this place.

The fourth clause left the whole of the testator's property, in lands and
in money, absolutely to his widow. In the fifth clause he added a new
proof of his implicit confidence in her--he appointed her sole executrix
of his will.

The sixth and last clause began in these words:--

"During my long illness, my dear wife has acted as my secretary and
representative. She has made herself so thoroughly well acquainted with
the system on which I have conducted my business, th