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THE DEVIL'S POOL but the search for ideal truth, and the "Vicar of Wakefield" was a more useful and healthy book than the "Paysan Perverti," or the "Liaisons Dangereuses."

Forgive these reflections of mine, kind reader, and let them stand as a preface, for there will be no other to the little story I am going to relate to you. My tale is to be so short and so simple, that I felt obliged to make you my apologies for it beforehand, by telling you what I think of the literature of terror.

I have allowed myself to be drawn into this digression for the sake of a laborer; and it is the story of a laborer which I have been meaning to tell you, and which I shall now tell you at once. 13