positively refused to be a parson.

"He had a horror," he said, "of making a mere profession of so sacred a calling. Besides, he had an awkward impediment in his speech, and he did not mean to stand up in a pulpit to expose his infirmity to the ridicule of others."

Honour to my grandfather. He was not deficient in mental courage, though Sir Robert, in the plenitude of his wisdom, had thought fit to brand him as a coward.

The bar was next proposed for his consideration, but the lad replied firmly, "I don't mean to be a lawyer."

"Your reasons, sir?" cried Sir Robert in a tone which seemed to forbid a liberty of choice.

"I have neither talent nor inclination for the profession."

"And pray, sir, what have you talent or inclination for?"

"A merchant," returned Geoffrey calmly and decidedly, without appearing to notice his aristocratic sire's look of withering contempt. "I have no wish to be a poor gentleman. Place me in my Uncle Drury's counting-house, and I will work hard and become an independent man."

Now this Uncle Drury was brother to the late Lady Moncton, who had been married by the worthy Baronet for her wealth. He was one of Sir Robert's horrors—one of those rich, vulgar connections which are not so easily shaken off, and whose identity is with great difficulty denied to the world. Sir Robert vowed, that if the perverse lad persisted in his grovelling choice, though he had but two sons, he would discard him altogether.

Obstinacy is a family failing of the Monctons. My grandfather, wisely, or unwisely, as circumstances should afterwards determine, remained firm to his purpose. Sir Robert realized his threat. The father and son parted in anger, and from that hour, the latter was looked upon as an alien to the old family stock; which he was considered to have disgraced.

Geoffrey, however, succeeded in carrying out his great life object. He toiled on with indefatigable industry, and soon became rich. He had singular talents for acquiring wealth, and they were not suffered to remain idle. The few pounds with which he commenced his mercantile career, soon multiplied into thousands, and tens of thousands; and there is no knowing what an immense fortune he might have realized, had not death cut short his speculations at an early period of his life.

He had married uncle Drury's only daughter, a few years after he became partner in the firm, by whom he had two sons, Edward and Robert, to both of whom he bequeathed an excellent property.

Edward, the eldest, my father, had been educated to fill the mercantile situation, now vacant by its proprietor's death, which was an ample fortune in itself, if conducted with prudence and regularity.

Robert had been early placed in the office of a lawyer of eminence, and was considered a youth of great talents and promise. Their mother had been dead for some years, and of her little is known in the annals of the family. When speculating upon the subject, I have imagined her to have been a plain, quiet, matter-of-fact body, who never did or said anything worth recording.

When a man's position in life is marked out for him by others, and he is left no voice in the matter, in nine cases out of ten, he is totally unfitted by nature and inclination for the post he is called to fill. So it was with my father, Edward Moncton. A person less adapted to fill an important place in the mercantile world, could scarcely have been found. He had a genius for spending, not for making money; and was so easy and credulous that any artful villain might dupe him out of it. Had he been heir to the title and the old family estates, he would have made a first rate country gentleman; for he possessed a fine manly person, was frank and generous, and excelled in all athletic sports.

My Uncle Robert was the very reverse of my father—stern, shrewd, and secretive; no one could see more of his mind than he was willing to show; and, like my grandfather, he had a great love for money, and a natural talent for acquiring it. An old servant of my grandfather's, Nicholas Banks, used jocosely to say of him: "Had Master Robert been born a beggar, he would have converted his ragged wrap-rascal into a velvet gown. The art of making money was born in him."

Uncle Robert was very successful in his profession; and such is the respect that men of common minds pay to wealth for its own sake, that my uncle was as much courted by persons of his class, as if he had been Lord Chancellor of England. He was called the honest lawyer: wherefore, I never could determine, except that he was the rich lawyer; and people could not imagine that the envied possessor of five thousand per annum, could have any inducement to play the rogue, or cheat his clients. The dependent slave who was chained all day to the desk, in Robert Moncton's office, knew him to be a dishonest man; but his practice daily increased, and his reputation and fortune increased in proportion.

The habits and dispositions of these brothers were so different, so utterly opposed to each other, that it was difficult to reconcile the mind to the fact that they were so closely related.

My uncle had a subtle knowledge of character, which was rendered more acute by his long acquaintance with the world; and he did not always turn it to a righteous account. My father was a babe in these matters—a cunning child might deceive him. While my uncle had a knack of saving without appearing parsimonious, my father had an unfortunate habit of frittering his money away upon trifles. You would have imagined that the one had discovered the secret of the philosopher's stone; and the other had ruined himself in endeavouring to find it out. The one was economical from choice, the other extravagant from the mere love of spending. My uncle married a rich merchant's daughter, for her money. My father ran off with a poor curate's penniless girl, for love. My father neglected his business and became poor. In the hope of redeeming his fortune he frequented the turf and the gambling-table; and died broken-hearted and insolvent in the prime of manhood; leaving his widow and her orphan boy to the protection and guardianship of the brother, who had drudged all his life to become a millionaire.

My dear mother only survived her handsome, reckless husband six short months; and, bereaved of both my natural protectors, I was doomed at the early age of eight years to drink the bitter cup of poverty and dependence to its very dregs.

CHAPTER II.

MY MOTHER'S FUNERAL.

I never saw my Uncle Robert Moncton until the morning of my mother's funeral; and the impression that first interview made upon my young heart will never be forgotten. It cast the first dark shadow upon the sunny dial of my life, and for many painful years my days and hours were numbered beneath its gloomy influence.

It was a chill, murky November day, such a day as London or its immediate vicinity can alone produce. The rain fell slowly and steadily to the ground; and trickled from the window-frames in one continuous stream. A thick mist hung upon the panes of glass like a gauze veil, intersected by innumerable channels of water, which looked like a pattern of open work left in the dingy material. The shutters of our once populous parlour were half-closed; and admitted into the large, deserted apartment only a portion of this obscure light. The hearse destined to convey the remains of my dear mother to their last, long resting-place, was drawn up at the door. I saw it looming through the fog, with its tall, black shadowy plumes, like some ghostly and monstrous thing. A hitherto unknown feeling of dread stole over me. My life had been all sunshine up to the present moment—the sight of that mournful funeral array swept like a dark cloud over the smiling sky, blotting out all that was bright and beautiful from my eyes and heart. I screamed in terror and despair, and hid my face in the lap of my old nurse to shut out the frightful vision, and shed torrents of