, and commented on, as far as it was consistent with Figgins's compact with Emma, and Charles plainly saw that, but for that viper, both his father and mother might have been alive, in all probability, at that moment.
As to Figgins himself, Charles did not choose to

let his opinion of him take date earlier than his reformation, since which he was charmed with every action.


Sir Sidney and his family were by this time in Warwickshire. Nothing however, hard as his inclination spurred him, could induce Charles to pay his respects to the baronet before he discharged his debts in London. He panted to find himself once more a free man in his own country. Sending Mrs. Marlow therefore before him, whose presence was particularly wished—for more than one reason—by Emma, our hero and Figgins visited all the quondam proprietors of the impartial newspaper, and paid off their demands; nor did they beget a little consternation among them by saying that the cause was now taken up in so spirited a manner, that a public print would shortly come out, which must be the inevitable destruction of all the rest; for it would expose their partiality, their bribes, their connections, together with all the names of those who were their supporters and abettors, and, in short, their whole arcana, from such

authority as the whole world would know in a moment to be authentic.
So far did they carry this, that hand bills were immediately dispersed, holding out, in such feasible terms, a plan for the destruction of these diurnal locusts, that private terms of conciliation came to them from two or three of the most vulnerable, which they, to foment the matter still more, published in a second hand bill.
At length, having enjoyed a complete laugh at them, and been joined by the town, they went into the country, and left them sweating with suspense.
The meeting between Charles and Sir Sidney was truly affecting. The noble candour of the baronet, the manly honesty of his self-accusation, had in it a dignity of soul highly admirable. He thought nothing a condescension which could serve to assure his young friend how deeply he felt the recollection of his former slights and suspicions; nor did he spare either his penetration or his justice, for having admitted them, for a single moment, to take place in his mind.
He declared he had ever held it as a maxim that

the most glorious moment of a man's life was that in which he acknowledged and repented of an error; and so heartily was he, at that instant,