all Miss Flint's persuasions, was fairly making my escape, when your father graciously pressed me to stay and dine with him, adding, 'I am not angry with you, Mr. Howard, because you are Percival's friend: he may think as he pleases of me, and follow his own conceit. When he is pennyless he will find out his mistakes, and it may be, not find his father the _slave-driver_, as he calls me.'--You must, my dear Percival, write to him, &c. &c. I did write to my father, Miss Cowley. I wish to forget his answer. He reproached me with having gained an interest in his wife's heart. She had sorrowed for me, and had even solicited for my return. He neither wished for my success, nor sent me a guinea. I embarked with my regiment for Canada; from thence I again wrote to my father, and also to my brother Oliver. The reply of the latter was not calculated to have removed my prejudices, if I had entertained any which were unfavourable to his traffic. "He was sorry that I had disobliged my good father, by a conduct which few men could overlook, and which he thought highly criminal, when my affinity was taken into the account. But idleness was the root of all evil; and he hoped I should, in my employment, retrieve my lost time, and regain my father's favour. He had four children; his wife, a teeming woman, expecting a fifth blessing. He wished me well, and was my affectionate brother Oliver." Here our correspondence closed. During my three or four years banishment I heard of my father's increasing infirmities, and the discontents at the hall; of Howard's having lost his mother, and his being the husband of Mary, my beloved sister; and, in a word, of my father's death, and our inheritance of a shilling. The lieutenant returned to his hospitable asylum a captain. The Heartleys "killed for him the fatted calf," as the _returned_ blessing, not the prodigal. Nothing, however, could detain me in town; and with all my worldly wealth, namely, thirty guineas in my purse, I took my place in a northern stage-coach; and quitting it within a few miles of this spot, endeavoured to hire a horse. Some difficulty arising, to which my impatience could not submit, I determined to leave my portmanteau at the inn, and to walk. I set forward, but was soon overtaken by a heavy rain. A stage-waggon was in sight, and knowing that I had no clothes with me, I accepted the shelter. A neatly-dressed country woman was the only passenger. The rain poured down in torrents, and she began her chat by observing that I had been lucky. I sighed. "Mayhap, Sir," continued she curiously examining my uniform, "you are not used to ride in waggon; but is it not better than being wet to the skin?" I said I found it so; and that it was comfortable. "Oh!" returned she, "many of your honour's poor soldiers would think it so!" Curiosity next came forward. "Had I far to go?"--"Only to the Abbey farm," answered I.--"We pass the door," returned she; "but you will find Mrs.