To dissever them without injury to the written spaces was by no means easy.

I proceeded to the task, not without precipitation.

The edges were torn away, and the leaves parted.
It may be thought that I took up the thread where it had been broken; but no.

The object that my eyes encountered, and which the cemented leaves had so long concealed, was beyond the power of the most capricious or lawless fancy to have prefigured; yet it bore a shadowy resemblance to the images with which my imagination was previously occupied.

I opened, and beheld--_a bank-note_! To the first transports of surprise, the conjecture succeeded, that the remaining leaves, cemented together in the same manner, might enclose similar bills.