POPULAR TALES:

A SERIES

OF

INTERESTING AND AMUSING STORIES.

BY

EMINENT AUTHORS.

VOL. I.

EDINBURGH:

WILLIAM P. NIMM O.

256. f. 143.

VI. THE MAN WHO OWNED HE WAS A FOOL,

Gerald Aymer's Loves.

"'Tis good to be off with the old love
Before you be on with the new."

EVERY one has something to say of himself. The veteran grows young, as he recounts the exploits of his youth, and shows how fields and reputation were lost and won. The citizen has his old-world story, which he loves to tell, and who is there so hard-hearted as would wish to interrupt him? I, too, have my story, and, to relieve the tedium of a sick-bed, I have become an egotist, and, such as it is, have resolved to relate it. If I can be a hero nowhere else, I shall at least be the hero of my own little tale.

Of my early youth I shall say little. I had a father who looked strictly after me, and a mother who loved me, but who died before I could appreciate her tenderness. As I was the only child, I was allowed, on all hands, to be a prodigy of learning, steadiness, and so forth; but the truth is, the old folks were deceived; I was too lazy to study anything except works of imagination, and my character of steadiness was more indebted to my face than to my manners. After going through the routine of school and college, I was sent to study