bear his burthen as well as your own--strong enough, also--ay, and alert and vigilant enough--to prevent those influences harming the others, whom you have undertaken to guide, and whose lots are confided to you? Pause well, and consider maturely, for this must not depend upon a generous impulse. I think that your cousin would now pass under your charge, with a sincere desire for reform; but between sincere desire and steadfast performance there is a long and dreary interval--even to the best of us. Were it not for Roland, and had I one grain less confidence in you, I could not entertain the thought of laying on your young shoulders so great a responsibility. But every new responsibility to an earliest nature is a new prop to virtue;--and all I now ask of you is--to remember that it _is_ a solemn and serious charge, not to be undertaken without the most deliberate gauge and measure of the strength with which it is to be borne. "In two days we shall be in London.--Yours, my Anachronism, anxiously and fondly, A. C." I was in my own room while I read this letter, and I had just finished it when, as I looked up, I saw Roland standing opposite to me. "It is from Austin," said he; then he paused a moment, and added in a tone that seemed quite humble, "May I see it?--and dare I?" I placed the letter in his hands, and retired a few paces, that he might not think I watched his countenance while he read it. And I was only aware that he had come to the end by a heavy, anxious, but not despondent sigh. Then I turned, and our eyes met, and there was something in Roland's look, inquiring--and as it were imploring. I interpreted it at once. "Oh, yes, uncle," I said, smiling; "I have reflected, and I have no fear of the result. Before my father wrote, what he now suggests had become my secret wish. As for our other companions, their simple natures would defy all such sophistries as--but he is already half cured of those. Let him come with me, and when he returns he shall be worthy of a place in your heart, beside his sister Blanche. I feel, I promise it--do not fear for me! Such a change will be a talisman to myself. I will shun every error that I might otherwise commit, so that he may have no example to entice him to err." I know that in youth, and the superstition of first love, we are credulously inclined to believe that love, and the possession of the beloved, are the only happiness. But when my uncle folded me in his arms, and called me the hope of his age, and stay of his house--the music of my father's praise still ringing on my heart--I do affirm that I knew a greater and a prouder bliss than if Trevanion had placed Fanny's hand in mine, and said, "She is yours."