Whose nature is so far from doing evil
That he suspects none; on whose foolish honesty
My practices ride easy.--_King Lear_.
Early the next morning, Morton was writing in his room, when Vinal
came in.
"Are you still bent on going off to-day?"
"Yes, within an hour."
"I was passing last evening by Professor Speyer's lodgings, and,
seeing a light at his window, went in. I told him that I had come to
find him in the afternoon with an old acquaintance of mine, who was
going to the Austrian provinces, and that I had advised you to ask
introductions from him to his friends there. He was a good deal
interested, as I knew he would be, in what I told him about the
objects of your journey. 'I'm very sorry,' he said, 'that I did not
see your friend, for I could have given him letters which I don't
doubt would have been of great use to him. But wait a few minutes,'
said he, 'and I'll write a few lines now.' Here they are," continued
Vinal, giving to Morton four or five notes of introduction. "You can
put them in your pocket, and use them or not, as you may find
convenient."
"I'm very much obliged to you," said Morton. "Tell Professor Speyer
that I am greatly indebted to his kindness, and shall be happy to
avail myself of it. You are looking very pale; are you ill?"
"No, not at all," stammered Vinal, "but, what is nearly as bad, I have
been kept awake all night with a raging toothache."
He had been awake all night, but not with toothache.
"There is one consolation for that trouble; cold steel will cure it."
"Yes, but the remedy is none of the pleasantest. I won't interrupt you
any longer. Good by. I wish you a pleasant journey."
He shook hands with Morton, and, pressing his haggard cheek, as if to
stifle the pain, left the room.
With a new letter from Edith Leslie before him, Morton saw the world
in rose tint. Happiness blinded him, and he was in no mood to doubt of
human nature. He blamed himself for his harsh opinions of Vinal.
"It's very generous of him to interest himself at this time, in my
affairs. ''Tis my nature's plague to spy into abuses.' I have
misjudged him. He is a better fellow than I ever took him for."
The notes were written in a peculiarly neat, small hand, and bore the
signature of Henry Speyer. They all spoke of Morton as interested in a
common object with the person addressed; but, with this exception,
there was nothing in them which drew his attention, especially as they
were in German, a language with which he was not very familiar. As for
the circumstance of their having been given at all to a person whom
the writer had never seen, Morton accounted for it on the score of the
good natured professor's desire to oblige his valued friend Vinal.