He succeeded tolerably well; so that the fact of Henry Beauchamp being living instead of dead, upon dry land instead of under the sea, was not known to above fifty thousand people when he arrived in London. Out of this number about a thousand had congratulated Lord Ashborough on the resuscitation of his nephew; but the noble lord had so impressed upon his mind that his nephew was dead, that he would not believe a word of the story, gravely saying, that he would give it implicit credence, as soon as he heard it from any one who would say, that they had seen Henry Beauchamp with their own eyes. As none of those could be met with, and as the story could be traced to no authentic source, Lord Ashborough held fast his conviction; and up to the hour of Beauchamp's arrival continued in the same belief. It was late at night, or rather early in the morning, when Beauchamp did once more reach the capital; and as he imagined that he was not likely to find anything prepared for his accommodation in the house of a dead man, he directed the postboys to drive to a hotel, rather than his own dwelling. It was later the next morning when he rose, than he had purposed over night; but nevertheless, as soon as he was up, he set forth for Lord Ashborough's, and walked immediately into the drawing-room, where, although the earl himself had breakfasted and gone out, Beauchamp had soon the pleasure of holding his sister in his arms. Although Maria Beauchamp was not in the least surprised to see him, as she had long before received convincing assurances of his safety; and though she was as light a hearted girl as ever danced through life, unconscious of its sorrows--yet when she first met her brother, after all the dangers he had encountered, the tears rose up in her eyes, from the more vivid impression which his presence produced upon her mind, of the loss she would have suffered, had the report of his death been true. The conversation between Henry and Maria Beauchamp was long, and to them highly interesting; and had the world ever been known to forgive those who write dialogues between brothers and sisters, it should have been here transcribed for general edification. In the course of it, Maria made herself acquainted with a great many of the secrets of her brother's heart, and, in return, gave him a far more clear and minute insight into all the views and designs of Lord Ashborough and his worthy agent, Mr. Peter Tims, than Beauchamp had imagined so gay and careless a girl, could have been shrewd enough to obtain. From her quick-sightedness in all those particulars, however, in which the interests of William Delaware were concerned, Beauchamp concluded--a result, which his sister certainly neither wished nor anticipated--that the surmise of his good lawyer, Mr. Wilkinson, was not so far wrong as he had at first imagined; and he paused, musing with a smile over all the events that yet might be in the wheel of fortune.