This was my first crime.  The recollection of it is engraven upon my memory by an awful catastrophe.  The night wind that sung her funeral dirge, howled with dismal fury through the burning ruins of my paternal mansion.  Yes! that very night, as if it were in mercy to them, my father and my mother both perished in the flames which reduced the house itself to cinders.  They were seen at the windows of their bedchamber, shrieking for aid; but before any could be procured, the flooring gave way, and they sunk at once into the yawning furnace that roared beneath.  Their remains, when afterwards dug out, were a few shovelsfull of blackened ashes; except my father’s right hand, which was found clasped in that of my mother, and both unconsumed.  I followed these sad relics to the sepulchre.  But with the tears I shed, there was blended a feeble consolation at the thought they had died before they knew the fate of Harriet; and a frightful joy, that another pang was added to the wretchedness of my uncle.

I can well remember what a feeling of loneliness and desolation now took possession of me.  Time, however, rolled on; and I grew callous, if not reconciled.  I could not disguise from myself that the more select circles of society were closed against me; or, if I found my way into them, some blushing whisper was quickly circulated, which created a solitude around me.

It was during this period, and while I was squandering thousands to achieve the conquest of shadows, that I succeeded in fixing an intimacy with a family equal to my own in station, and superior to it in fortune.  The eldest daughter was an heiress of large expectations, and my proposals of marriage were favourably received.  I might almost say that Matilda was mine; when one day I received a letter from her father, peremptorily forbidding my visits.  I was thunderstruck.  I hastened to the house, and demanded an explanation.  It was given in few words. I was referred to my uncle for any information I required.

This blow struck me down.  I had run through my patrimonial estate; but hoped, by my marriage with Matilda, to repair my shattered fortune.  Three weeks after it was known that the match was broken off, I was a prisoner for debt in the King’s Bench!  I breathed no curses upon the cause of this sudden reverse of fortune, but—­I swore revenge, in silence; and I kept my oath.  I languished away six months, a captive debtor; and then, taking the benefit of the act, I walked forth a beggar, to prey upon the world at large!  I had studied, during that time, in an admirable school, where I found professors in every art by which fools are gulled, and knaves foiled with their own weapons.  I was an apt scholar, and returned to the bosom of society, an adept in the science of polished depredation.  Translate this into the language of the Old Bailey, and I became a swindler by profession.  Like the eagle, however, I was a bird of prey that soared into the highest regions, and rarely stooped to strike the meaner tribes of my species.  I had not lost, with the trappings of my birth, the manners and address of the sphere in which I had moved; and these were now my stock in trade for carrying on my new vocation.