It has enabled poor Me to serve the caprice of a wealthy member of the family into which my late uncle married.

I am fortunate enough to be useful to Mr.
Franklin Blake.
I have been cut off from all news of my relatives by marriage for some time past.

When we are isolated and poor, we are not infrequently forgotten.

I am now living, for economy's sake, in a little town in Brittany, inhabited by a select circle of serious English friends, and possessed of the inestimable advantages of a Protestant clergyman and a cheap market.
In this retirement--a Patmos amid the howling ocean of popery that surrounds us--a letter from England has reached me at last.

I find my insignificant existence suddenly remembered by Mr.Franklin Blake.
My wealthy relative--would that I could add my spiritually-wealthy relative!--writes, without even an attempt at disguising that he wants something of me.