urn too soon--he is well employed."

"Oh! I care not--he is alive--he is alive! God bless you--God bless
you!"

Melchior made a sign to me, pointing to the five guineas and the
reticule; and I contrived to slip them into her reticule, while she
sobbed in her handkerchief.

"Enough, madam; you must go, for others require my aid."

The poor woman rose, and offered the ring.

"Nay, nay, I want not thy money; I take from the rich, that I may
distribute to the poor--but not from the widow in affliction. Open thy
bag." The widow took up her bag, and opened it. Melchior dropped in
the ring, taking his wand from the table, waved it, and touched the bag.
"As thou art honest, so may thy present wants be relieved. Seek, and
thou shalt find."

The widow left the room with tears of gratitude; and I must say, that I
was affected with the same. When she had gone, I observed to Melchior,
that up to the present he had toiled for nothing.

"Very true, Japhet; but depend upon it, if I assisted that poor woman
from no other feelings than interested motives, I did well; but I tell
thee candidly, I did it from compassion. We are odd mixtures of good
and evil. I wage war with fools and knaves, but not with all the world.
I gave that money freely--she required it; and it may be put as a
set-off against my usual system of fraud, or it may not--at all events,
I pleased myself."

"But you told her that her son was alive."

"Very true, and he may be dead; but is it not well to comfort her--even
for a short time, to relieve that suspense which is worse than the
actual knowledge of his death? Sufficient for the day is the evil
thereof."

It would almost have appeared that this good action of Melchior met with
its reward, for the astonishment of the widow at finding the gold in her
reticule--her narrative of what passed, and her assertion (which she
firmly believed to be true), that she had never left her reticule out of
her hand, and that Melchior had only touched it with his wand, raised
his reputation to that degree, that nothing else was talked about
throughout the town, and, to crown all, the next day's post brought her
a letter and remittances from her son; and the grateful woman returned,
and laid ten guineas on the black cloth, showering a thousand blessings
upon Melchior, and almost worshipped him as a supernatural being. This
was a most fortunate occurrence, and as Melchior prophesied, the harvest
did now commence.