"'Solely dependent upon my rich father, without any fixed aim or object in life, I had just made a most imprudent marriage, when his death, which happened almost immediately upon his reverse of fortune, awoke me to the melancholy reality which stared me in the face.
"'In my distress I wrote to Robert Moncton, who had just commenced practice at his old office in Hatton Garden. He answered my appeal to his charity promptly, and gave me a seat in his office as engrossing clerk, with a very liberal salary which, I need not assure you, was most thankfully accepted by a person in my reduced circumstances. This place I filled entirely to his satisfaction for fifteen years, until I was the father of twelve children.
"'My salary was large, but, alas! it was the wages of sin. All Robert Moncton's dirty work was confided to my hands. I was his creature—the companion of his worst hours—and he paid me liberally for my devotion to his interests. But for all this, there were moments in my worthless life when better feelings prevailed; when I loathed the degrading trammels in which I was bound; and often, on the bosom of a dear and affectionate wife, I lamented bitterly my fallen state.
"'About this period Edward Moncton died, and Robert was appointed guardian to his orphan child. Property there was none—barely sufficient to pay the expenses of the funeral. Robert supplied from his own purse £50, towards the support of the young widow, until she could look about and obtain a situation as a day governess or a teacher in a school, for which she was eminently qualified.
"'I never shall forget the unnatural joy displayed by Robert on this melancholy occasion: "Thank God! William," said he, clapping me on the shoulder, after he had read the letter which poor Mrs. Moncton wrote to inform him of her sudden bereavement, 'Edward is dead. There is only one stumbling-block left in my path, and I will soon kick that out of the way.'
"'Three months had scarcely elapsed before I went to —— with Robert Moncton, to attend the funeral of his sister-in-law. The sight of the fine boy who acted as chief mourner in that mournful ceremony cut me to the heart. I was a father myself—a fond father—and I longed to adopt the poor, friendless child. But what could a man do who has a dozen of his own?
"'As we were on our road to ——, Robert had confided to me his plans for setting aside his nephew's claims to the estates and title of Moncton, in case you should die without a male heir. The secluded life which Mrs. Moncton had led since her marriage; her want of relatives to interest themselves in her behalf, and the dissipated habits of her husband, who had lost all his fine property at the gaming-table, made the scheme not only feasible, but presented few obstacles to its accomplishment.
"'Shocked at this piece of daring villainy, I dissembled my indignation, and while I appeared to acquiesce in his views, I secretly determined to befriend, if possible, the innocent child.
"'The night prior to the funeral, he called me into his private office, and after chatting over a matter of little consequence, he said to me in a careless manner:
"'"By the by, Walters, Basset told me the other day, that you had taken a craze to go to America. This is your wife's doings, I suppose. I don't suffer Mrs. Moncton to settle such matters for me. But is it true?"