“Forgive me, my dear cousin,” she said, in her softest voice. “I feel that I was hasty, and to blame. Believe me, I am now at least grateful, warmly grateful, for the kindness of your motives.” “Not so,” said Walter, bitterly, “the advice of a friend is only meanness.” “Come, come, forgive me; pray, do not let us part unkindly. When did we ever quarrel before? I was wrong, grievously wrong--I will perform any penance you may enjoin.” “Agreed then, follow my admonitions.” “Ah! any thing else,” said Madeline, gravely, and colouring deeply. Walter said no more; he pressed her hand lightly and turned away. “Is all forgiven?” said she, in so bewitching a tone, and with so bright a smile, that Walter, against his conscience, answered, “Yes.” The sisters left the room. I know not which of the two received his last glance. Lester now returned with the letters. “There is one charge, my dear boy,” said he, in concluding the moral injunctions and experienced suggestions with which the young generally leave the ancestral home (whether practically benefited or not by the legacy, may be matter of question)--“there is one charge which I need not entrust to your ingenuity and zeal. You know my strong conviction, that your father, my poor brother, still lives. Is it necessary for me to tell you to exert yourself by all ways and in all means to discover some clue to his fate? Who knows,” added Lester, with a smile, “but that you may find him a rich nabob. I confess that I should feel but little surprise if it were so; but at all events you will make every possible inquiry. I have written down in this paper the few particulars concerning him which I have been enabled to glean since he left his home; the places where he was last seen, the false names he assumed, I shall watch with great anxiety for any fuller success to your researches.” “You needed not, my dear uncle,” said Walter seriously, “to have spoken to me on this subject. No one, not even yourself, can have felt what I have; can have cherished the same anxiety, nursed the same hope, indulged the same conjecture. I have not, it is true, often of late years spoken to you on a matter so near to us both, but I have spent whole hours in guesses at my father’s fate, and in dreams that for me was reserved the proud task to discover it. I will not say indeed that it makes at this moment the chief motive for my desire to travel, but in travel it will become my chief object. Perhaps I may find him not only rich,--that for my part is but a minor wish,--but sobered and reformed from the errors and wildness of his earlier manhood. Oh, what should be his gratitude to you for all the care with which you have supplied to the forsaken child the father’s place; and not the least, that you have, in softening the colours of his conduct, taught me still to prize and seek for a father’s love!”