m being a loser by the trust that I
had placed in him. There is the secret of my strange tenderness for the
memory of a felon; that is why the word villain does somehow still grate
on my heart when I hear it associated with the name--the disgraced
name, I grant you--of the forger Fauntleroy. Pass the bottles, young
gentlemen, and pardon a man of the old school for having so long
interrupted your conversation with a story of the old time.

THE TENTH DAY.

THE storm has burst on us in its full fury. Last night the stout old
tower rocked on its foundations.

I hardly ventured to hope that the messenger who brings us our letters
from the village--the postman, as we call him--would make his appearance
this morning; but he came bravely through rain, hail and wind. The old
pony which he usually rides had refused to face the storm, and, sooner
than disappoint us, our faithful postman had boldly started for The Glen
Tower on foot. All his early life had been passed on board ship, and,
at sixty years of age, he had battled his way that morning through the
storm on shore as steadily and as resolutely as ever he had battled it
in his youth through the storm at sea.

I opened the post-bag eagerly. There were two letters for Jessie from
young lady friends; a letter for Owen from a charitable society; a
letter to me upon business; and--on this last day, of all others--no
newspaper!

I sent directly to the kitchen (where the drenched and weary postman was
receiving the hospitable attentions of the servants) to make inquiries.
The disheartening answer returned was that the newspaper could not have
arrived as usual by the morning's post, or it must have been put into
the bag along with the letters. No such accident as this had occurred,
except on one former occasion, since the beginning of the year. And
now, on the very day when I might have looked confidently for news of
George's ship, when the state of the weather made the finding of that
news of the last importance to my peace of mind, the paper, by some
inconceivable fatality, had failed to reach me! If there had been the
slightest chance of borrowing a copy in the village, I should have
gone there myself through the tempest to get it. If there had been the
faintest possibility of communicating, in that frightful weather, with
the distant county town, I should have sent there or gone there myself.
I even went the length of speaking to the groom, an old servant whom
I knew I