He besought me, in pathetic terms, to search out his sister, whose youth and poverty, and ignorance of the language and manners of the country, might expose her to innumerable hardships.

At the same time, he put a pocket-book and small volume into my hand, indicating, by his countenance and gestures, his desire that I would deliver them to his sister.
"His obsequies being decently performed, I had leisure to reflect upon the change in my condition which this incident had produced.

In the pocket-book were found bills to the amount of twenty thousand dollars.
The volume proved to be a manuscript, written by the elder Lodi in Italian, and contained memoirs of the ducal house of Visconti, from whom the writer believed himself to have lineally descended.
"Thus had I arrived, by an avenue so much beyond my foresight, at the possession of wealth.

The evil which impelled me to the brink of suicide, and which was the source, though not of all, yet of the larger portion, of my anguish, was now removed.

What claims to honour or to ease were consequent on riches were, by an extraordinary fortune, now conferred upon me.
"Such, for a time, were my new-born but transitory raptures.