The next day my house was filled with visitors. I had no notion that I
had so many friends. Mr. Vigors wrote me a generous and handsome letter,
owning his prejudices against me on account of his sympathy with poor Dr.
Lloyd, and begging my pardon for what he now felt to have been harshness,
if not distorted justice. But what most moved me was the entrance of
Strahan, who rushed up to me with the heartiness of old college days.
"Oh, my dear Allen, can you ever forgive me; that I should have
disbelieved your word,--should have suspected you of abstracting my poor
cousin's memoir?"

"Is it found, then?"

"Oh, yes; you must thank Margrave. He, clever fellow, you know, came to
me on a visit yesterday. He put me at once on the right scent. Only
guess; but you never can! It was that wretched old housekeeper who
purloined the manuscript. You remember she came into the room while you
were looking at the memoir. She heard us talk about it; her curiosity was
roused; she longed to know the history of her old master, under his own
hand; she could not sleep; she heard me go up to bed; she thought you
might leave the book on the table when you, too, went to rest. She stole
downstairs, peeped through the keyhole of the library, saw you asleep,
the book lying before you, entered, took away the book softly, meant to
glance at its contents and to return it. You were sleeping so soundly
she thought you would not wake for an hour; she carried it into the
library, leaving the door open, and there began to pore over it. She
stumbled first on one of the passages in Latin; she hoped to find some
part in plain English, turned over the leaves, putting her candle close to
them, for the old woman's eyes were dim, when she heard you make some
sound in your sleep. Alarmed, she looked round; you were moving uneasily
in your seat, and muttering to yourself. From watching you she was soon