"Love, my dear Percival, had supplied to our ingenuity a friend not more secret than yourself, but much more tractable and convenient. The hollow oak at the avenue gate received our letters from the time your prudence refused the office. I wrote to my beloved girl the whole detail of our conversation the day preceding your departure, and depositing it in the wonted place, hastened to pay my morning visit at the hall." I was prepared for the question, 'Did I know what was become of you?' I answered to the point. You had been with me the day before, and had mentioned your intention of setting out for London as that morning.--'I told you, Sir,' cried Miss Flint, giving me a significant look, 'that Mr. Howard is not one whom he would trust with his idle schemes!'--'You are mistaken, Madam,' answered I, 'Mr. Flint was explicit with me in regard to his motives for leaving Tarefield. He told me he was weary of idleness, and was determined to seek employment.'--'He has pleased himself, Mr. Howard,' observed your father, with much coolness. 'I can have no objection to his plan, for I have long recommended employment to him; but he has learned to despise my advice, and to think every man a _monster_ who plants sugar-canes. A few hardships will convince him, that the bread earned by the sweat of the brow is as laboriously earned in Europe as in the West-Indies.'--'Percival's talents will, I should hope,' answered I, 'secure him from so bitter an experiment; and his education has not been subservient to commercial views.'--'So much the worse,' replied he, with passion, 'so much the worse for him! He would have been getting forward by this time; with Oliver as his assistant, he would have had three or four hundred pounds per annum.'--'Well,' replied I, 'let us hope he will meet fortune in his own way; and that will never be a dishonourable one.'--'Pray do you know where he means to seek the fickle goddess?' asked Mr. Flamall.--'Were she not blind as well as fickle,' replied I, 'she would seek him; but real merit and persevering courage will, in the long run, get before her.'--'In that case he must be more persevering than he has been,' observed your father, 'and better informed as to what will suit him. His Latin and Greek will do him no good, for he has discovered that priestcraft is as bad as the negro trade; but this comes of a man's having more ballast than his head can carry.'--'Whoever has insinuated into your mind, Sir, this opinion of your son,' replied I, 'did not know him; and I assert that he desired nothing more ardently, than to be ordained to exercise the functions of a parish priest.' He looked vexed, and said he had heard a very different story. I had given my sweet girl a look of intelligence, and she comprehended it. Mrs. Flint had tenderly taken her seat by her, and appeared anxious to console her. Finding your father said no more on the subject of your various _sins_, I rose to depart; and, resisting