the secret committee.

Mr. ---- took the necessary means to summon his agent to a personal
interview. They met in a wood at midnight. Here Mr. ---- complimented
his companion on his fidelity and adroitness; explained the necessity of
their communications being closed; and finally tendered the money. The
other drew back, and declined receiving it. "The country has need of all
its means," he said; "as for myself, I can work, or gain a livelihood in
various ways." Persuasion was useless, for patriotism was uppermost in
the heart of this remarkable individual; and Mr. ---- departed, bearing
with him the gold he had brought, and a deep respect for the man who had
so long hazarded his life, unrequited, for the cause they served
in common.

The writer is under an impression that, at a later day, the agent of
Mr. ---- consented to receive a remuneration for what he had done; but it
was not until his country was entirely in a condition to bestow it.

It is scarcely necessary to add, that an anecdote like this, simply but
forcibly told by one of its principal actors, made a deep impression on
all who heard it. Many years later, circumstances, which it is
unnecessary to relate, and of an entirely adventitious nature, induced
the writer to publish a novel, which proved to be, what he little
foresaw at the time, the first of a tolerably long series. The same
adventitious causes which gave birth to the book determined its scene
and its general character. The former was laid in a foreign country; and
the latter embraced a crude effort to describe foreign manners. When
this tale was published, it became matter of reproach among the author's
friends, that he, an American in heart as in birth, should give to the
world a work which aided perhaps, in some slight degree, to feed the