hout the holy influence of
religious sympathy.

But the even flow of prosperity which had for so long gladdened my little
household was not destined to last for ever. It was ordained that I
should experience the bitter truth of more than one of the wise man's
proverbs, and first, especially, of that which declares that "he that
hateth suretyship is sure." I found myself involved (as how many have
been before) by a "d--d good-natured friend," for more than two hundred
pounds. This agreeable intelligence was conveyed to me in an attorney's
letter, which, to obviate unpleasant measures, considerately advised my
paying the entire amount within just one week of the date of his pleasant
epistle. Had I been called upon within that time to produce the Pitt
diamond, or to make title to the Buckingham estates, the demand would
have been just as easily complied with.

I have no wish to bore my reader further with this little worry--a very
serious one to me, however--and it will be enough to mention, that the
kindness of a friend extricated me from the clutches of the law by a
timely advance, which, however, I was bound to replace within two years.
To enable me to fulfill this engagement, my wife and I, after repeated
consultations, resolved upon the course which resulted in the odd and
unpleasant consequences which form the subject of this narrative.

We resolved to advertise for a lodger, with or without board, &c.; and by
resolutely submitting, for a single year, to the economy we had
prescribed for ourselves, as well as to the annoyance of a stranger's
intrusion, we calculated that at the end of that term we should have
liquidated our debt.

Accordingly, without losing time, we composed an advertisement in the
most tempting phraseology we could devise, consistently with that
economic laconism which the cost per line in the columns of the _Times_
newspaper imposes upon the rhetoric of the advertising public.

Somehow we were unlucky; for although we repeated our public notification
three times in the course of a fortnight, we had but two applications.
The one was from a clergyman in ill health--a man of great ability and
zealous piety, whom we both knew by reputation, and who has since been
called to his rest. My good little wife was very anxious that we should
close with his offer, which was very considerably under what we had fixed
upon; and I have no doubt that she was influenced by the hope that his
talents and zeal mig