cost. Let him be educated to get his own living,--if clever, as a
scholar or a lawyer; if dull, as a tradesman. Whatever I may gain, he
will have his own way to make. I ought to tell you the story connected
with his birth; but it is one of pain and shame, and, on reflection, I
feel that I have no right to injure him by affixing to his early birth an
opprobrium of which he himself is guiltless. If ever I return to
England, you shall know all, and by your counsels I will abide. Love to
all your happy family. Your grateful
FRIEND AND PUPIL.

From this letter I began to suspect that the poor boy was probably not
born in wedlock, and that Ardworth's silence arose from his compunction.
I conceived it best never to mention this suspicion to John himself as he
grew up. Why should I afflict him by a doubt from which his own father
shrank, and which might only exist in my own inexperienced and
uncharitable interpretation of some vague words? When John was fourteen,
I received from Messrs. Drummond a further sum of 500 pounds, but without
any line from Ardworth, and only to the effect that Messrs. Drummond were
directed by a correspondent in Calcutta to pay me the said sum on behalf
of expenses incurred for the maintenance of the child left to my charge
by John Walter Ardworth. My young pupil had been two years at the
University when I received the letter of which this is a copy:--

"How are you? Still well, still happy? Let me hope so! I have not
written to you, dear old friend, but I have not been forgetful of you; I
have inquired of you through my correspondents, and have learned, from
time to time, such accounts as satisfied my grateful affection for you.
I find that you have given the boy my name. Well, let him bear it,--it
is nothing to boast of such as it became in my person; but, mind, I do
not, therefore, acknowledge him as my son. I wish him to think himself