whom I reposed the most unreserved
confidence. But strange to say, this confidence was not mutual. There
was a mystery about George which I could not fathom; a mental
reservation which was tantalizing and inexplicable.

He was a gentleman in education, appearance and manners, and possessed
those high and honourable feelings, which if displayed in a peasant
would rank him as one, and which are inseparable from all who really
deserve the title. He never spoke to me of his family--never alluded to
the events of his past life, or the scenes in which his childhood had
been spent. He talked of sorrow and sickness--of chastisements in the
school of adversity, in general terms; but he never revealed the cause
of these trials, or why a young man of his attainments was reduced to a
situation so far below the station he ought to have held in society.

I was half inclined to quarrel with him for so pertinaciously
concealing from me circumstances which I thought I had a right to know;
and in which, when known, I was fully prepared to sympathize. A
thousand times I was on the point of remonstrating with him on this
undue reserve, which appeared so foreign to his frank, open nature, but
feelings of delicacy restrained me.

What right had _I_ to pry into his secrets? My impertinent curiosity
might reopen wounds which time had closed. There were, doubtless, good
reasons for his withholding the information I coveted.

Yet, I must confess that I had an intense curiosity--a burning desire
to know the history of his past life. For many long months my wishes
remained ungratified.

At this time I felt an ardent desire to see something more of life, to
mingle in the gay scenes of the great world around me. Pride, however,
withheld me from accepting the many pressing invitations I daily
received from the clerks in the office, to join them in parties of
pleasure, to the theatres and other places of public amusement. Mr.
Moncton had strictly forbidden me to leave the house of an evening; but
as he was often absent of a night, I could easily have evaded his
commands; but I scorned to expose to strangers the meanness of my
wealthy relative, by confessing that mine was an empty purse; while the
thought of enjoying myself at the expense of my generous companions,
was not to be tolerated for an instant. If I could not go as a
gentleman, and pay my own share of the entertainment, I determined not
to go at all; and these resolutions met with the e