‘Will you allow me to ask you a question or two?’ said he at last.

‘As many as you please,’ said I; ‘but shall we not have lights?’

‘Not unless you particularly wish it,’ said my entertainer; ’I rather like the dark, and though a storm is evidently at hand, neither thunder nor lightning has any terrors for me.  It is other things I quake at—­I should rather say ideas.  Now permit me to ask you—­’

And then my entertainer asked me various questions, to all of which I answered unreservedly; he was then silent for some time, at last he exclaimed, ’I should wish to tell you the history of my life—­though not an adventurous one, I think it contains some things which will interest you.’

Without waiting for my reply he began.  Amidst darkness and gloom, occasionally broken by flashes of lightning, the stranger related to me, as we sat at table in the library, his truly touching history.

’Before proceeding to relate the events of my life, it will not be amiss to give you some account of my ancestors.  My great-grandfather on the male side was a silk mercer, in Cheapside, who, when he died, left his son, who was his only child, a fortune of one hundred thousand pounds and a splendid business; the son, however, had no inclination for trade, the summit of his ambition was to be a country gentleman, to found a family, and to pass the remainder of his days in rural ease and dignity, and all this he managed to accomplish; he disposed of his business, purchased a beautiful and extensive estate for fourscore thousand pounds, built upon it the mansion to which I had the honour of welcoming you to-day, married the daughter of a neighbouring squire, who brought him a fortune of five thousand pounds, became a magistrate, and only wanted a son and heir to make him completely happy; this blessing, it is true, was for a long time denied him; it came, however, at last, as is usual, when least expected.  His lady was brought to bed of my father, and then who so happy a man as my grandsire; he gave away two thousand pounds in charities, and in the joy of his heart made a speech at the next quarter sessions; the rest of his life was spent in ease, tranquillity, and rural dignity; he died of apoplexy on the day that my father came of age; perhaps it would be difficult to mention a man who in all respects was so fortunate as my grandfather:  his death was sudden it is true, but I am not one of those who pray to be delivered from a sudden death.

’I should not call my father a fortunate man; it is true that he had the advantage of a first-rate education; that he made the grand tour with a private tutor, as was the fashion at that time; that he came to a splendid fortune on the very day that he came of age; that for many years he tasted all the diversions of the capital that, at last determined to settle, he married the sister of a baronet, an amiable and accomplished lady, with a large fortune; that he had