world; therefore I secured to her, but with such precautions that the
gift could not be traced to my hand, a sum to accumulate till she was
of marriageable age, and which then might suffice for a small wedding
portion; or if she remained single, for an income that would place her
beyond the temptation of want, or the bitterness of a servile dependence.

That Dr. Lloyd should have died in poverty was a matter of
surprise at first, for his profits during the last few years had been
considerable, and his mode of life far from extravagant. But just before
the date of our controversy he had been induced to assist the brother of
his lost wife, who was a junior partner in a London bank, with the loan
of his accumulated savings. This man proved dishonest; he embezzled that
and other sums intrusted to him, and fled the country. The same sentiment
of conjugal affection which had cost Dr. Lloyd his fortune kept him
silent as to the cause of the loss. It was reserved for his executors to
discover the treachery of the brother-in-law whom he, poor man, would
have generously screened from additional disgrace.

The Mayor of L----, a wealthy and public-spirited merchant, purchased the
museum, which Dr. Lloyd's passion for natural history had induced him to
form; and the sum thus obtained, together with that raised by subscription,
sufficed not only to discharge all debts due by the deceased, but to
insure to the orphans the benefits of an education that might fit at
least the boys to enter fairly armed into that game, more of skill than
of chance, in which Fortune is really so little blinded that we see, in
each turn of her wheel, wealth and its honours pass away from the lax
fingers of ignorance and sloth, to the resolute grasp of labour and
knowledge.

Meanwhile a relation in a distant county undertook the charge of the