provided, he had, on more than one occasion, entered the house by an unguarded pantry window, and escaped with a certain portion of valuables. From his familiar knowledge of the premises he had managed this without detection. But Yare, as we have seen, suspected him; and, on the night of the storm, had tracked him to Maude Doughty's hovel, about which he (the butler) had lurked, in hope of discovering something conclusive. How he happened to be near the spot during the mock incantation, the reader is already aware. OSBORNE NORTHBROOKE. Queen's Square, 15th November, 1747. It was my intention, an hour ago, to visit Drury Lane Theatre, and see Garrick in Hamlet; but the evening has turned out so rainy and gloomy that I will remain at my fireside, and devote the coming hours, (till the return of my wife and children from an evening party,) to forming a narrative of a strange incident in my life. I shall not do this with any purpose of printing it at present, but shall leave it among my papers; and if, after I am gathered to "the great majority," any one connected with me should think fit to give it to the public, I trust its details may not be altogether useless. To the afflictions which beset me many years ago, I can now look back with perfect calmness. Not that I am by any means free from a recurrence of them, but that I feel when next they attack me their visitation will be final. The time is past when strength was given me to combat such evils. I shall never be in a condition to recite another event similar to that I am now to describe; and, to my belief, I am the only living man capable of telling such a story. About two-and-twenty years ago, namely, in 1725, I formed a passionate attachment to a young lady of good family, my present wife, with whom I have passed as happy a matrimonial life as ever blessed any man. The misfortune I had already suffered, returned in its utmost ghastliness upon me two years after our union (during the lapse of the previous year, I had been free from it), and all but ended in an unutterable tragedy. This danger might have been avoided had I placed entire confidence in her who had inseparably linked her fate with mine. I dared not, however, communicate my secret to Olivia before marriage, because I dreaded to lose her hand; and I was weak enough afterwards |