“If I have not answered you as I should,” I continued, “you must attribute it partly to the storm, which I confess rather discomposes my ideas; and partly to a little surprise—a very foolish surprise, I own—that you should still be able to feel so strong a sympathy with interests which are generally only considered of importance to the young.”
“It is only in their sympathies, that men of my years can, and do, live their youth over again,” he said. “You may be surprised to hear a tradesman’s clerk talk in this manner; but I was not always what I am now. I have gathered knowledge, and suffered in the gathering. I have grown old before my time—my forty years are like the fifty of other men—”
My heart beat quicker—was he, unasked, about to disclose the mystery which evidently hung over his early life? No: he dropped the subject at once, when he continued. I longed to ask him to resume it, but could not. I feared the same repulse which Mr. Sherwin had received: and remained silent.
“What I was,” he proceeded, “matters little; the question is what can