THE MOORISH GOLD.
'Nothing's the matter, sir,' replied Richard, with a face of terror.
'I'll tell you what,' said the friend, when Richard had been dismissed, 'there's something queer about that lad; what does he mean by turning red and pale, and breathing as hard as if my coins had knocked the breath out of his body?'
His master also thought it queer when that same evening Richard gave him warning, and added that he wished to leave that night, for his brother's wife had written to say that her husband vas dangerously ill, and wished to see him.
His master was vexed; but being an easy man, he paid Richard his wages, and let him go, with many kind wishes for his brother's recovery.
'And now,' said Richard, 'I'll be a gentleman. I've left my old clothes, and when I'm missed my family can claim them. Honest industry is the best thing after all. Let them do for themselves; they ought to be above troubling me; my name shall be Mr. Davenport St. Gilbert; I shall keep myself to myself, for I want nothing of them, and that alone will be a good thing for them, and more than they ever had reason to expect.'
He then went to a number of shops, and soon supplied himself with everything that he thought necessary to constitute him a gentleman—a handsome suit of clothes, studs, a new hat, a cane, and lastly a pair of gloves, which he had been very near forgetting; then he went to a hotel, ordered supper and a bed, and by seven o'clock the next morning was on his way to the Cumberland mountains. The image of that moun-
