eathing his property to Bryant, as his sole heir; but
having a great horror of death, he could not bear to perform the act
which would remind him too painfully of his mortality.

"Time enough when I am taken sick," he would say, "to attend to these
things;" but the blow which announced the coming of death, crushed the
citadel of thought. There was no time for making wills, and Bryant was
left far poorer than his adopted father had found him, for he had
acquired all the tastes which wealth alone can gratify, and all the
vices, too.

When he returned, reluctant and disappointed, with alienated feelings,
to his native home, he found that his father was dead, and his mother a
solitary widow. By selling the little farm which had served them for a
support, and restricting herself of every luxury, and many comforts, she
could defray the expenses of a collegiate education, and this she
resolved to do. Bryant accepted the sacrifice without hesitation,
deeming it his legitimate right.

On his way to the university, which was still more remote from his
native village than that was from the home of his adopted father, he
conceived the design of imposing upon his new companions the story of
his Virginian birth--though born in reality in one of the Middle States.
He had heard so much of Virginian aristocracy, of the pride of tracing
one's descent from one of the _first families_ of Virginia, that he
thought it a pardonable deception if it increased his dignity and
consequence. He was ashamed of his parentage, which was concealed under
the somewhat patrician name of Clinton, and as he chose to change his
birth-place, it was not very probable that his real origin would be
discovered. He had previously ascertained that no boys were members of
the college, who had ever seen him before, or who knew any thing of the
region where he had dwelt. He soon became a star-scholar, from the
brilliancy of his talents, and a favorite, too, from the graceful
pliancy of his manners, and apparent sweetness of his disposition. But
with all his grace and sweetness, he was unprincipled and dissolute, and
exerted the commanding influence he had acquired over the minds of his
companions, to lead them into temptation, and lure them to sin. Yet he
had the art to appear himself the tempted, as well as they. His agency
was as invisible as it was powerful, and as fatal, too. When, with
seeming reluctance, he took his seat at the gaming-table and won, as he
inv