That night, he returned to Portland. Many curious inquiries were made of him as to the object of his journey; for this was the first time he had left Portland for many years. To all these inquiries he preserved an impenetrable silence; merely shaking his head mysteriously, lest he should incur the dreadful doom denounced against him. Henceforth he deemed himself as one singled out from the great mass of mankind. Upon his fellow-mortals he looked with a pitying eye, as beings with whom the invisible spirits of the air had never deigned to hold communication. Happy in his innocent delusion, he would not exchange places with the most powerful monarch. Locked up in his trunk are the gold coins which he found in his pocket in accordance with the mysterious letter. He will never spend them; for he regards them as a fairy gift; and he fancies, that, while he holds them in his possession, Fortune will ever smile upon him.
THE END.