CHAPTER I.
A Multitude of Good Reasons.
In accordance with many most excellent precedents, I might begin by claiming the sympathy due to an orphan alone in the world.

I might even summon my unguided childhood and the absence of parental training to excuse my faults and extenuate my indiscretions.

But the sympathy which I should thus gain would be achieved, I fear, by something very like false pretenses.

For my solitary state sat very lightly upon me--the sad events which caused it being softened by the influence of time and habit--and had the recommendation of leaving me, not only free to manage my own life as I pleased, but also possessed of a competence which added power to my freedom.

And as to the indiscretions--well, to speak it in all modesty and with a becoming consciousness of human frailty, I think that the undoubted indiscretions--that I may use no harder term--which were committed in the course of a certain fortnight were not for the most part of my doing or contriving.