t and beautiful in the lower world. I had yet to
learn, that perfect love casteth out fear, that the great Father
punishes but to reform, and is ever more willing to save than to
condemn. I dared not seek Him, lest I should hear the terrible
denunciation thundered against the wicked: "Depart from me, ye cursed!"

A firm trust in His protecting care would have been a balm for every
wound which festered and rankled at my heart's core. Had the
Christian's hope been mine, I should no longer have pined under that
dreary sense of utter loneliness, which for many years paralyzed all
mental exertions, or nurtured in my breast the stern unforgiving temper
which made me regard my persecutors with feelings of determined hate.

Residing in the centre of the busy metropolis, and at an age when the
heart sighs for social communion with its fellows, and imagines, with
the fond sincerity of inexperienced youth, a friend in every agreeable
companion, I was immured among old parchments and dusty records, and
seldom permitted to mingle with the guests who frequented my uncle's
house, unless my presence was required to sign some official document.

Few persons suspected that the shabbily-dressed silent youth who obeyed
Mr. Moncton's imperious mandates was his nephew--the only son of an
elder brother; consequently I was treated as nobody by his male
visitors, and never noticed at all by the ladies.

This was mortifying enough to a tall lad of eighteen, who already
fancied himself a man: who, though meanly dressed, and sufficiently
awkward, had enough of vanity in his composition to imagine that his
person would create an interest in his behalf and atone for all other
deficiencies, at least in the eyes of the gentler sex--those angels,
who seen at a distance, were daily becoming objects of admiration and
worship.

Alas! Poor Geoffrey. Thou didst not know in that thy young day the
things pertaining to thy peace. Thou didst not suspect in thy innocence
how the black brand of poverty can deform the finest face, and dim the
brightest intellect in the eyes of the world.

Among all my petty trials there were none which I felt more keenly than
having to wear the cast-off clothes of my cousin. He was some years
older, but his frame was slighter and shorter than mine, and his
garments did not fit me in any way. The coat sleeves were short and
tight, and the trowsers came half-way up my legs. The figure I cut in
these unsuitable garments was so