g-house. This was a new speculation, and promised more than all the
rest. Every energy was called forth--every faculty. His plans we already
know--his success has yet to be discovered. Abraham did not die intestate.
He left a will, bequeathing to Michael, his son and heir, a rotten firm, a
dishonourable name, a history of dishonesty, a nest of troubles.
Accompanying his will, there was a letter written in Allcraft's hand to
Michael, imploring the young man to act a child's part by his unhappy
parent. The elder one urged him by his love and gratitude to save his name
from the discredit which an exposure of his affairs must entail upon it;
and not only upon _it_, he added, but upon the living also. He had
procured for him, he said, an alliance which he would never have aspired
to--never would have obtained, had not his father laboured so hardly for
his boy's happiness and welfare. With management and care, and a gift from
his intended wife, nothing need be said--no exposure would take place--the
house would retain its high character, and in the course of a very few
years recover its solvency and prosperity. A fearful list of the
engagements was appended, and an account of every transaction in which the
deceased had been concerned. Michael read and read again every line and
word, and he stood thunderstruck at the disclosure. He raved against his
father, swore he would do nothing for the man who had so shamefully
involved himself; and, not content with his own ruin, had so wickedly
implicated him. This was the outbreak of the excited youth, but he sobered
down, and, in a few hours, the creature of impulse and impetuosity had
argued himself into the expediency of adapting his conduct to existing
circumstances--of stooping, in short, to all the selfishness and meanness
that actuate the most unfeeling and the least uncalculating of mortals. If
there were wanting, as, thank Heaven, there is not, one proof to
substantiate the fact, that no rule of life is safe and certain save that
made known in the translucent precepts of our God--no species of thought
free from hurt or danger--no action secure from ill or mischief, except
all thoughts and actions that have their origin in humble, loving,
_strict_ obedience to the pleasure and the will of Heaven; if any one
proof, I say, were wanting, it would be easy to discover it in the natural
perverse and inconsistent heart of man. A voice louder than the
preacher's--the voice of daily, hourl