y. I no longer cared for wealth. The
hope of distinguishing myself in the world had died out of my heart. But
industry always brings a reward for toil, and in spite of my
indifference, money accumulated, and I grew rich.

My household expenses were so moderate, (for I shunned all society,)
that every year I put by a large sum, little caring hereafter by whom it
might be spent. My mother sometimes urged me to marry; but I slighted
her advice on that head. The history of her wedded life was enough to
make me eschew the yoke of matrimony.

My old craze for leaving the country was still as strong as ever; but I
had given a solemn promise to my mother to remain in England as long as
she lived. Often as I sat opposite to her in the winter evenings, I
wished it would please God to take her. It was very wicked; but I never
could meet her eyes without fearing lest she should read my dreadful
secret in the guilty gloom of mine. I had loved her so devotedly when a
boy, that these sinful thoughts were little less than murder.

There was one other person whom I always dreaded to meet, and that was
Mrs. Martin, the mother of my unfortunate victim. This woman never
passed me on the road without looking me resolutely in the face. There
was a something which I could scarcely define in her earnest regard; it
was a mixture of contempt and defiance, of malignity, and a burning
thirst for revenge. At any rate, I feared and hated her, and wished her
either dead or out of my path.

Fortunately for me, she heard of a situation likely to suit her in a
distant parish, but lacked the means to transport herself and her little
daughter thither. I was so eager to get rid of her, that I sent her
anonymously ten pounds to further that object. My mother and her gossips
imagined the donation came from the Hall, and were loud in their praises
of Sir Walter, and his generous present to the poor widow. But Sir
Walter Carlos had no such motives as mine to stimulate his bounty.

It was just about this period that I fell sick of a dangerous and highly
infectious fever. The house was of course deserted. The doctor and my
mother were the only persons who approached my sick-bed; the latter had
all the fatigue and anxiety of nursing me herself, and she did not
shrink from the task.

The good, the happy, the fortunate, the lovely, and the beloved, those
to whom life is very dear, and the world a paradise, die, and are
consigned by their weeping friends and k