I may confide to the reader now, that in connection with this
little history I had something upon my mind; something to
communicate which I had all along with difficulty repressed;
something I had deemed it, during the progress of the story,
necessary to its interest to disguise, and which, now that it was
over, I wished, and was yet reluctant, to disclose.
To conceal anything from those to whom I am attached, is not in my
nature. I can never close my lips where I have opened my heart.
This temper, and the consciousness of having done some violence to
it in my narrative, laid me under a restraint which I should have
had great difficulty in overcoming, but for a timely remark from
Mr. Miles, who, as I hinted in a former paper, is a gentleman of
business habits, and of great exactness and propriety in all his
transactions.
'I could have wished,' my friend objected, 'that we had been made
acquainted with the single gentleman's name. I don't like his
withholding his name. It made me look upon him at first with
suspicion, and caused me to doubt his moral character, I assure
you. I am fully satisfied by this time of his being a worthy
creature; but in this respect he certainly would not appear to have
acted at all like a man of business.
Pages:
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198