“I wish you to do as you choose, Frederick—all I hope is that I may induce you to choose wisely. Listen to me for awhile, and see if I do not present this matter before you in a different aspect. I came here as you know, my son, when this valley was an unbroken wilderness, a poor man, poor through the fraud and injustice of others; and I at once resolved, more for your sake than my own, to be rich. I toiled early and late; I struggled, in the early part of my career, with hardships and difficulties. But at length I was successful. My resources are ample; _yours_ I should have said, but I cannot consent that the wealth, to the accumulation of which I have devoted all the best years of my life, should go to enrich a beggar. With your talents, your fine person, your graceful and winning address, together with the fortune which I had intended to place in your hands upon your next birth-day, (to say nothing of your expectations at my decease,) with all these advantages, I say, you might select a wife from the highest and wealthiest family in the land. There is a young girl, the orphan daughter of one whom I knew in my boyhood, whom I selected years ago as my future daughter-in-law. Her fortune must be immense, and every advantage that wealth can give will be lavished upon her. She is—let me see—she is about fifteen now, and is said to be very beautiful. There is a clause in her father’s will, I am told, that will prevent her marrying before she is twenty-one. You have been long wishing to make the tour of Europe, and I was thinking, just previous to my unfortunate discovery this afternoon, that it would be well for you to start immediately, spend the next four years in traveling, and still have a year or two at your disposal, after your return, to secure you success with her. But of course it is useless to say any thing about it now, as you have made your own choice.” Mr. Gordon ceased, and for a long time Frederick sat silently revolving his father’s words in his mind. He was not naturally the callous, cold-hearted being which the reader might judge him to be from the soliloquy we overheard in the woods. His noble and generous impulses had for many years given his father a deal of trouble, and even yet, as we have seen from his conduct this day, he occasionally acted without any regard to the “almighty dollar.” But these instances had, of late, been rare. Andrew Gordon was gradually moulding him to his will, and even before receiving the summons to his presence this evening, the effect of the lessons that he had been taking through his whole life was resuming its sway, and Ambition or Avarice—call it by which ever name best pleases you, was beginning to struggle with Love. “What is the name of the young lady of whom you were speaking, sir?” he finally asked. “Elizabeth Munro,” was the reply, and again there was a long pause. “Let me retire now, if you please,” said Frederick, rising; “I would fain think over this matter in my own room.”