Alonzo thanked him for his friendship and fatherly kindness. "I must continue, said he, my researches for Melissa; the result you shall know." He then departed, and travelled through the neighbouring villages and adjoining neighbourhoods, making, at almost every house, such enquiries as he considered necessary on the occasion. He at length arrived at the inn in the last little village where Melissa and her aunt had stopped the day they came to the mansion. Here the inn-keeper informed him that two ladies, answering his description, had been at his house: he named the time, which was the day in which Melissa, with her aunt, left her father's house. The inn-keeper told him that they purchased some articles in the village, and drove off to the south. Alonzo then traversed the country adjoining the Sound, far to the westward, and was returning eastward, when he was overtaken by the shower. No house being within sight, he betook himself to the forest for shelter. From a little hilly glade in the wilderness, he discovered the lonely mansion which, from its appearance, he very naturally supposed to be uninhabited.--The tempest soon becoming severe, he thought he would endeavour to reach the house. When he arrived at the moat, he found it impossible to cross it, or ascend the wall; and he stood in momentary jeopardy of his life, from the falling timber, some of which was broken and torn up by the tornado, and some splintered by the fiery bolts of heaven. At length a large tree, which stood near him, on the verge of the moat, or rather in that place, was hurled from its foundation, and fell, with a hideous crash, across the moat, its top lodging on the wall. He scrambled up on the trunk, and made his way on the wall. By the incessant glare of lightning he was able to see distinctly. The top of the tree was partly broken by the force of its fall, and hung down the other side of the wall. By these branches he let himself down into the yard, proceeded to the house, found the door open, which Melissa had left in her fright, and entered into one of the rooms, where he proposed to stay until at least the shower was over, still supposing the house unoccupied, until the noise of locking the door, and the light of the candle, drew him from the room, when, to his infinite surprise, he discovered Melissa, as before related. Melissa listened to Alonzo with varied emotion. The fixed obduracy of her father, the generous conduct of the Simpsons, the constancy of Alonzo, filled her heart with inexpressible sensations. She foresaw that her sufferings were not shortly to end--she knew not when her sorrows were to close.