But this is too much.

Sir Edward Mortimer is my mother's younger brother, Clarke, but he is not many years older than myself.

A proper, strait-laced, soft-voiced lad he has ever been, and, as a consequence, he throve in the world, and joined land to land after the scriptural fashion.

I had befriended him from my purse in the old days, but he soon came to be a richer man than I, for all that he gained he kept, whereas all I got--well, it went off like the smoke of the pipe which you are lighting.

When I found that all was up with me I received from Mortimer an advance, which was sufficient to take me according to my wish over to Virginia, together with a horse and a personal outfit.