and for some reason keeping himself concealed, had munificently paid
hitherto for his maintenance, and would lay down what might be necessary
to start him in business, or perhaps place him in the army, but that his
father might be better pleased if he could show a love of independence,
and henceforth maintain himself. I knew the boy I spoke to! John
thought as I did, and I never applied for another donation to the elder
Ardworth. The allowance ceased; John since then has maintained himself.
I have heard no more from his father, though I have written often to the
address he gave me. I begin to fear that he is dead. I once went up to
town and saw one of the heads of Messrs. Drummond's firm, a very polite
gentleman, but he could give me no information, except that he obeyed
instructions from a correspondent at Calcutta,--one Mr. Macfarren.
Whereon I wrote to Mr. Macfarren, and asked him, as I thought very
pressingly, to tell me all he knew of poor Ardworth the elder. He
answered shortly that he knew of no such person at all, and that A. B.
was a French merchant, settled in Calcutta, who had been dead for above
two years. I now gave up all hopes of any further intelligence, and was
more convinced than ever that I had acted rightly in withholding from
poor John my correspondence with his father. The lad had been curious
and inquisitive naturally; but when I told him that I thought it my duty
to his father to be so reserved, he forebore to press me. I have only to
add, first, that by all the inquiries I could make of the surviving
members of Walter Ardworth's family, it seemed their full belief that he
had never been married, and therefore I fear we must conclude that he had
no legitimate children,--which may account for, though it cannot excuse,
his neglect; and secondly, with respect to the sums received on dear
John's account, I put them all by, capital and interest, deducting only
the expense of his first year at Cambridge (the which I could not defray
without injuring my own children), and it all stands in his name at
Messrs. Drummond's, vested in the Three per Cents. That I have not told