tomorrow in reference to
Mr. Margrave."

"There is the book," said Strahan; "I have just glanced at it, and find
much of it written in Latin; and I am ashamed to say that I have so
neglected the little Latin I learned in our college days that I could
not construe what I looked at."

I sat down and placed the book before me; Strahan fell into a doze, from
which he was wakened by the housekeeper, who brought in the tea-things.

"Well," said Strahan, languidly, "do you find much in the book that
explains the many puzzling riddles in poor Sir Philip's eccentric life
and pursuits?"

"Yes," said I. "Do not interrupt me."

Strahan again began to doze, and the housekeeper asked if we should want
anything more that night, and if I thought I could find my way to my
bedroom.

I dismissed her impatiently, and continued to read. Strahan woke up
again as the clock struck eleven, and finding me still absorbed in the
manuscript, and disinclined to converse, lighted his candle, and telling
me to replace the manuscript in the desk when I had done with it, and be
sure to lock the desk and take charge of the key, which he took off the
bunch and gave me, went upstairs, yawning.

I was alone in the wizard Forman's chamber, and bending over a stranger
record than had ever excited my infant wonder, or, in later years,
provoked my sceptic smile.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

The Manuscript was written in a small and peculiar handwriting, which,
though evidently by the same person whose letter to Strahan I had read,
was, whether from haste or some imperfection in the ink, much more hard
to decipher. Those parts of the Memoir which related to experiments, or
alleged secrets in Nature, that the writer intimated a desire to submit
exclusively to scholars or men of science, were in Latin,--and Latin
which, though grammatically correct, was frequently obscure. But all
that detained the eye and attention on the page necessarily served to
impress the contents more deeply on remembrance.

The narrative commenced with the writer's sketch of his childhood. Both
his parents had died before he attained his seventh year. The orphan
bad been sent by his guardians to a private school, and his holidays had
been passed at Derval Court. Here his earliest reminiscences were those
of the quaint old room, in which I now sat, and of his childish wonder
at the inscription on the chimneypiece--who and what was the Simon
Forman who had there found a refuge from p