Laubepin led me out of the room, and put a document in my hand.  It was a will, and the ink on it was hardly dry.  Mlle. de Porhoet had made me her heir.

“How good of her!” I said to Laubepin.  “I shall treasure her testament as a mark of her love for me.  I will settle her little estate on my sister.  It will at least keep Helene from having to go out into the world as a governess.”

“And it will keep you, my friend, from having to go out into the world as a steward,” said Laubepin, with a smile.  “Don’t you remember that document about the Spanish succession which you discovered and sent to me?  We have won the law-suit, and you are the heir to an estate in Spain which will make you one of the richest men in France.”

I went into the garden to think over my strange fortune.  How long I sat there in the darkness I do not know.  On rising up, I heard a faint sound beneath one of the trees, and a beloved form emerged from the foliage, and stood against the starry sky.

“Marguerite!” I cried, running up to her with outstretched arm.

She murmured my name, and as I clasped her her lips sought mine, and we poured our souls out in a kiss.

* * * * *

I have given Helene half of my fortune.  Marguerite is my wife, and I close these pages for ever, having nothing more to confide to them.  It can be said of men, as it has been said of nations, “Happy are those that have no story.”

* * * * *

HENRY FIELDING

Amelia

Henry Fielding was born at Sharpham Park, near Glastonbury, England, April 12, 1707.  His father, a grandson of the Earl of Desmond, and great-grandson of the first Earl of Denbigh, settled in England shortly after the battle of Ramillies as a country squire.  In due course, Fielding was sent to Eton, and afterwards to Leyden, where he remained for two years studying civil law.  Financial difficulties, however, put a temporary end to his intention of entering the Bar, and in 1727 he solved the problem of a career by beginning to write for the stage.  During the next nine years some eighteen of his plays were produced.  In 1748 he was appointed a justice of peace for Westminster, and his writings on police and crime are of interest to this day.  “Amelia” was published in 1751, when its author was a magistrate at Bow Street.  In a dedicatory letter, Fielding explained that the book was “sincerely designed to promote the cause of virtue, and to expose some of the most glaring evils, as well public as private, which at present infest the country.”  The licentiousness of wealthy “men about town,” the corruption of justice, the abuses of the prison system, the lack of honour concerning marriage—­these are some of the “glaring evils” exposed with all the great novelist’s power in “Amelia.”  In the characters of Dr.