It was late the next night when I approached my own home.  I had left Olivia at an inn five miles away, intending to prepare my family for her reception.  To my amazement, I saw the house bursting out into a blaze of fire, and every aperture red with conflagration!  I gave a loud convulsive outcry, which alarmed my son, and all my family ran out, wild with apprehension.  Our neighbours came running to our assistance; but the flames had taken too strong a hold to be extinguished, and all the neighbours could do was to stand spectators of the calamity.  They brought us clothes and furnished one of our outhouses with kitchen utensils; so that by daylight we had another, though a wretched, dwelling to retire to.

In the midst of this affliction our poor lost one returned to us.  “Ah, madam,” cried her mother, “this is but a poor place to come to after so much finery!  I can afford but little entertainment to persons who have kept company only with persons of distinction; but I hope Heaven will forgive you.”

The unhappy victim stood pale and trembling, unable to weep or to reply.

“I entreat, woman,” I said to my wife, with severity in my voice and manner, “that my words may be now marked once for all.  I have here brought you back a poor deluded wanderer—­her return to duty demands the revival of our tenderness.  The real hardships of life are now coming fast upon us; let us not increase them by dissensions among each other.  The kindness of Heaven is promised to the penitent, and let ours be directed by the example.”

My daughter’s grief, however, seemed formed for continuing, and her wretchedness was increased by the news that Mr. Thornhill was going to be married to the rich Miss Wilmot, who had formerly been betrothed to my eldest son.

On a morning of peculiar warmth for the season, when we were breakfasting out of doors, Mr. Thornhill drove up in his chariot, alighted, and inquired after my health with his usual air of familiarity.

“Sir,” replied I, “your present assurance only serves to aggravate your baseness.”

“My dear sir,” returned he, “I cannot understand what this means!”

“Go!” cried I.  “Thou art a poor, pitiful wretch, and every way a liar; but your meanness secures you from my anger!”

“I find,” he said, “you are bent upon obliging me to talk in a harsher manner than I intended.  My steward talks of driving for the rent, and it is certain he knows his duty.  Yet, still, I could wish to serve you, and even to have you and your daughter present at my marriage.”

“Mr. Thornhill,” replied I, “as to your marriage with any but my daughter, that I never will consent to!  And though your friendship could raise me to a throne, or your resentment sink me to the grave, yet would I despise both.”

“Depend upon it,” returned he, “you shall feel the effects of this insolence,” and departed abruptly.

On the very next morning his steward came to demand my annual rent, which, by reason of the accidents already related, I was unable to pay.  On the following day two officers of justice took me to the county gaol.