“But did you never suspect that things were going on ill before?—did Linden make no attempt to see her at the Doctor’s? It seems strange that no measures should have been taken before it was too late.” “Alas! my dear young lady, you do not know how difficult it is to suspect and chide what we love dearly. I had given up my child into other hands; she was removed entirely from my humble sphere; and whilst I saw her happy, I could not but think her deserving; and when she became otherwise, she was miserable, and it was not the moment to shew her any severity. Indeed, indeed, it was impossible for me to mistrust or chide one so above me as my Alice. As to young Linden, it turned his mind. I walked to his father’s house, ill as I was, just to shake hands with him and see him, as soon as I was told of what had passed. The old gentleman, Cyrel’s father, could not speak. The mother wept as soon as she beheld me; but there was not one bitter word fell from either, though they knew it would prove the ruin of the young man, their son, and perhaps his death.” “From that time, till the present,” continued Gerald, “I seldom see Linden; he always avoids me. He altered very much, and took to hard drinking and bad company; his mind was a little shaken; he grew very slack at his duty; and listed, we suppose, with that same gang, which seduced my two poor boys from their allegiance and duty. He was reprimanded and punished by his commander; but it seems all one, for Mr. Challoner was telling me, only a few days since, that in the last business there with Squire O’Flarney, Linden was taken notice of by the justice. There’s no one can save him, he seems so determined-like on his own ruin; and they say, it’s the cause why the old father is on his death-bed at this present time. There is no bitterness of heart like that which comes from thankless children. They never find out, till it is too late, how parents loved them:—but it was not her fault—no—I don’t blame her—(he knit his brow)—no—I don’t blame her.—Mr. Buchanan is no child of our own house, though he fills the place of that gracious infant which it pleased the Lord to take to himself. Mr. Buchanan is the son of a strange father:—I cannot consider him as one of our own—so arbitrary:—but that’s not the thing.”