indeed, it was evident that he had been gradually acquiring a greater
degree of esteem and confidence than he had at first enjoyed, and had
been latterly more employed by his uncle. That a young man of
superior education should find the daily drudgery tedious and
distasteful, and that one of sensitive honour should be startled at
the ordinary, he might almost say proverbial, customs of the miller's
trade, was surprising to no one; and that he should unbosom himself
to a friend of his own age, and indulge together with him in romantic
visions of adventure, was, to all who remembered their own boyhood,
an illustration of the freshness and ingenuousness of the character
that thus unfolded itself. Where there were day-dreams, there was no
room for plots of crime.

Then ensued a species of apology for the necessity of entering into
particulars that did not redound to the credit of a gentleman, who
had appeared before the court under such distressing circumstances as
Mr. Samuel Axworthy; but it was needful that the condition of the
family should be well understood, in order to comprehend the unhappy
train of events which had conducted the prisoner into his present
situation. He then went through what had been traceable through the
evidence--that Samuel Axworthy was a man of expensive habits, and
accustomed to drain his uncle's resources to supply his own needs;
showing how the sum, which had been intrusted to the prisoner, to be
paid into the local bank, had been drawn out by the elder nephew as
soon as he became aware of the deposit; and how, shortly after, the
prisoner had expressed to Aubrey May his indignation at the tyranny
exercised on his uncle.

'By and by, another sum is amassed,' continued Leonard's advocate.
'How dispose of it? The local bank is evidently no security from the