portunity
to press the subject. I was invited to breakfast with the family, and
accepted. I was vexed and mortified to find that I was not acknowledged
as a nephew, grandson, and cousin; but I found that I had one believer
in Marian. I had convinced her with my unsupported word; but I intended
to show her the evidence.

After breakfast I went to my boarding-house, and repaired at once to
Mrs. Whippleton's room. She was better than when I had left her, three
days before, and was able to open upon me in a volley of reproaches for
my treachery and dishonesty, as she bluntly called them.

"I thought there wan't but one honest feller in the world, and I was
cheated in him," said she, bitterly.

"Not exactly, Mrs. Whippleton," I replied, handing her the sealed
package. "There are your papers and your money."

"No; you don't say it!"

"Open it, and see."

It took an hour for her to count the money and examine the papers. She
compared them with the receipt I had given her, and nothing was
missing.

"Well, I reckon you be honest, after all," said she, cheerfully. "Who'd
'a thought it! But where is Charles? I didn't know but he might got the
papers away from you. He wanted to raise all the money he could to save
himself from ruin."

"Not for that; but to set himself up in business in China," I replied;
and then I told the story of her son's misdeeds.

"So he's in jail--is he?" exclaimed she. "Well, I was afraid it would
come to this, when I heard he was in trouble, for Charles never was as
shrewd as he ought to be."

"Shrewd!" I replied, in disgust. "He has followed out your maxims of
worldly wisdom, instead of being true to God, himself, and his
fellow-beings; and now he has his reward."

"Well, I don't know what all that has to do with it. I say he wan't
shrewd," persisted the old lady.

"He has practised just what you taught him."

"No, he didn't!" replied she. "He wan't cunning."

"Good by, Mrs. Whippleton. I only hope you will live long enough to
repent of your sins, and learn, before it is too late, that worldly
wisdom will not carry an immortal being through this world and the
world to come."

I had not patience to hear any more. I went to my room, and I did not
leave it for a week. The blow I had received on the head, with the
excitement and fatigue of the cruise down the lake, made me sick. I
wrote to my father after I had been confined to my chamber three days;
and when I was about well enough to go