“Before long, I rose to the chief place in the counting-house.  It was no very difficult matter for me to discover, that my new master’s character had other elements besides that of the highest respectability.  In plain terms, I found him to be a pretty equal compound by nature, of the fool, the tyrant, and the coward.  There was only one direction in which what grovelling sympathies he had, could be touched to some purpose.  Save him waste, or get him profit; and he was really grateful.  I succeeded in working both these marvels.  His managing man cheated him; I found it out; refused to be bribed to collusion; and exposed the fraud to Mr. Sherwin.  This got me his confidence, and the place of chief clerk.  In that position, I discovered a means, which had never occurred to my employer, of greatly enlarging his business and its profits, with the least possible risk.  He tried my plan, and it succeeded.  This gained me his warmest admiration, an increase of salary, and a firm footing in his family circle.  My projects were more than fulfilled:  I had money enough, and leisure enough; and spent my obscure existence exactly as I had proposed.

“But my life was still not destined to be altogether devoid of an animating purpose.  When I first knew Margaret Sherwin, she was just changing from childhood to girlhood.  I marked the promise of future beauty in her face and figure; and secretly formed the resolution which you afterwards came forward to thwart, but which I have executed, and will execute, in spite of you.

“The thoughts out of which that resolution sprang, counselled me more calmly than you can suppose.  I said within myself:  ’The best years of my life have been irrevocably wasted; misery and humiliation and disaster have followed my steps from my youth; of all the pleasant draughts which other men drink to sweeten existence, not one has passed my lips.  I will know happiness before I die; and this girl shall confer it.  She shall grow up to maturity for me: I will imperceptibly gain such a hold on her affections, while they are yet young and impressible, that, when the time comes, and I speak the word—­though my years more than double hers, though I am dependent on her father for the bread I eat, though parents’ voice and lover’s voice unite to call her back—­she shall still come to my side, and of her own free will put her hand in mine, and follow me wherever I go; my wife, my mistress, my servant, which I choose.

“This was my project.  To execute it, time and opportunity were mine; and I steadily and warily made use of them, hour by hour, day by day, year by year.  From first to last, the girl’s father never suspected me.  Besides the security which he felt in my age, he had judged me by his own small commercial standard, and had found me a model of integrity.  A man who had saved him from being cheated, who had so enlarged and consolidated his business as to place him among the top dignitaries of the trade; who was the first to come to the desk in the morning, and the last to remain there in the evening; who had not only never demanded, but had absolutely refused to take, a single holiday—­such a man as this was, morally and intellectually, a man in ten thousand; a man to be admired and trusted in every relation of life!