ogether, the house made such a strange and unpleasant
impression upon me, that I felt no wish to repeat my visit.

Manucci had now been residing seven years amongst us, leading a
peaceful and quiet life, a frequent visitor at our house, well looked
upon and liked by all who knew him. Although there was certainly a
degree of mystery attaching to him, yet no one was suspicious of him,
nor had the voice of scandal ever been lifted up to his prejudice. He
was friendly and attentive to my mother, kind to me, courteous to
every one, seemed perfectly contented with his mode of life, and never
talked of changing it. Our astonishment was consequently so much the
greater, when one morning we learnt his sudden disappearance from the
neighbourhood. Enquiries were made in every direction, but none had
seen him depart. His shrivelled old housekeeper was also nowhere to be
found.

It was within a few weeks after this strange disappearance, that I
obtained the first insight into the character of the mysterious
Italian. After my father's death, and the winding up of his affairs,
his papers and letters had been put in boxes and locked up in a
closet. I one day took it into my head to rummage these papers. There
were vast numbers of bills of lading and exchange, insurance papers
and the like, all matters of no interest to me; but at last, upon
untying a bundle of miscellaneous documents, a small packet fell out
which seemed likely to reward my search. It consisted of fragments of
letters, much damaged by fire, and which, to judge from the size of
the half-burned envelope that contained them, and that had apparently
been originally used for a much larger parcel, probably formed only a
small part of a collection of letters that had been accidentally or
intentionally destroyed by the flames.

Here are some of these fragments of letters.

"... The society of a man whose acquaintance I have made since my
arrival here, becomes each day more agreeable to me. He has seen
a vast deal of the world, and his mind is stored with the most
varied knowledge, to such a degree that it sometimes appears to
me as if the longest life would be insufficient to acquire all
that he has learned. Our acquaintance was made in an odd place
enough--a gambling-house, to which I had gone as a matter of
curiosity. He was sitting away from the tables, and addressed
some trifling remark to me, to which I replied. He then, as