mate page,
read aloud:--"To-day--Sold to that old miser of a bookseller, my rare
copy of Chaucer, the costly edition of Caxton. My friend, the dear,
noble Andreas Vandelmeer, made me a present of it on my birthday, when
we were at the university together. He had written to London for it
himself: paid an enormous price for it; and then had it bound, after his
own taste, in rich Gothic style. The old hunks of a bookseller will, no
doubt, send it back to London, and will get for it tenfold what he has
given me. I ought, at least, to have cut out the leaf where the
circumstance of this gift is recorded; and here I have written some
lamentable lines, signed with my present name and address. This is
vexatious. Parting with this book almost persuades me that something
like want is pressing on us; for, without doubt, it was the most
precious thing I possessed, and the memorial of my dearest and my only
friend. Oh, Andreas Vandelmeer! art thou still living? Where art thou?
And dost thou still think of me?"

"I saw your pain," said Clara, as he concluded, "when you sold that
book; but this friend of your youth--you have never described him to
me."

"He was in person," replied Henry, "somewhat resembling myself--rather
older and more staid. We knew each other as boys at school. I might say
he almost persecuted me with his love, so passionately did he press it
on me. He was ever complaining that my friendship was too cold. Rich as
he was, and tenderly as he had been brought up, no indulgence had made
him selfish. On leaving the university, he determined on going to India,
that distant land of wonder having fascinated his ardent imagination.
There was then quite a storm of entreaties and supplications that I
should accompany him. He assured me that I should make my fortune there,
as his own forefathers had in fact done. But my mother died about this
time, and my friends, moreover, procured for me a position in the
diplomatic body. He persuaded me, at least, to entrust to him the small
fortune I had inherited from my mother, that he might employ it
advantageously for me; a request which I have always suspected was made
in order that he might have, some future time, a pretext and disguise
for his generosity. We took leave of each other, and I repaired, in the
suite of my ambassador, to the town where your father resided--and
where"----

"The history becomes tolerably well known to us both. But this noble
Andreas--did you never hea