he related it. It was customary for the parents of the scholars, on an
appointed day, to dine with the master, at which time it was expected they
would bring with them the amount of their bills. It was late at night,
after one of such meetings, that Dr. L. was awakened by a noise at his
bed-room door; he rose up, and going into the passage which led to the
staircase, but which was not in the direct way from Aram's bed room to the
ground-floor, he discovered the usher _dressed_. Having questioned him as
to the object of his rising at that unseasonable hour, Aram confusedly
answered that he had been taken unwell, and had been obliged to go do down
stairs. The Dr. then retired, unsuspiciously, to bed. From the combined
circumstances of the noise at the door, his great agitation and confusion,
and from his being found in the passage, the worthy Dr., in later years,
had no doubt, that, from its being known to Aram that a considerable sum
of money was in his bed-room, Aram intended nothing less than to rob him;
and no doubt, continued the narrator, he _would_ have murdered me too, if
it had been rendered necessary, from my discovering or opposing him.

The spot just at the entrance to the play-ground, at which Aram was taken
into custody by two strange men from Yorkshire, is still remarked, and
generally by the young scholar in a tremulous whisper.--_Literary Gazette_.

* * * * *




THE NATURALIST.

* * * * *