uld have
ultimately succeeded had he not behaved like a barbarian.

"My sister requested a private interview, which I readily granted; and
then with tears, and groans, and lamentations, told me that her
husband's fate rested in my hands, and that if I wished to kill her I
could by pursuing a harsh course. I begged her to explain, but she threw
herself upon her knees and vowed that she would never rise until I had
promised to do as she wished. I declined to make a profession that I did
not understand, and at length I drew from her that her husband, the man
whom she had married in opposition to my wishes, had forged my name to
bills amounting to nearly fifty thousand pounds, and that I was expected
to save him from a public death, or transportation for life, to conceal
the crime. I indignantly refused, but I did not know how hard a woman
can plead. I was promised my sister's property that was settled on her
at the death of my father, and she gave me an order to sell out her
stock in the public funds, for the purpose of reimbursing me, although I
found that I should suffer to the extent of twenty-five thousand pounds
by the transaction; but sooner than witness her tears I consented, and,
in consequence, was made almost a beggar."

The old man brushed away a tear that coursed down his rugged cheeks, and
for a few minutes seemed lost in thought. At length he continued:--

"I assumed the forged notes and paid them as they matured, but the
public discovered that I had made many sacrifices in my business to meet
the spurious paper, and then came doubts and suspicions, and at last a
run upon my house, and to save myself I called upon my sister for her
fortune. God of heaven! how I felt when I discovered that the villain,
her husband, had already used her name, drawn her money from the funds,
and had left for some part of the world where we could not trace him.

"I sank beneath the blow, and when I rallied my business was swept away,
and the firm of Critchet was known only by its debts. I struggled for a
time against the stream, but I could not gain a foothold, and at last
yielded and gave up all thoughts of resuming business. My family was
supported by a small settlement of one hundred pounds which had been
left to my wife by an aunt, and by music lessons which my daughter was
enabled to give, and thus we struggled along, until at length my sister,
who could not bear up under her disgrace, died and left me her child to
provid