"I have now," he continued sighing, "to touch upon a passage of agony in my own life, which will account for my concealment. Shortly afterwards I quitted Lord Dillon, sufficiently provided for, for all moderate wants; I had a son of my own, a fine youth of fourteen. After leaving his lordship, at Mr. Tremenhere's prayer I repaired to Yorkshire with my son, who was to be as companion and friend to his son, then a boy of ten; all was happiness and peace for nearly a year. There was something in my child I could never fully understand--a disposition difficult to govern; something not open and candid--but I hoped time might make him otherwise, and the society of those around him. A year passed--I will but touch upon this; it is too painful," the poor father trembled as he spoke. "The manor-house was robbed one night; after a long, painful investigation, you may guess my horror at the discovery, my son was implicated in it. A sum to a considerable amount had been abstracted from Mr. Tremenhere's old cabinet; he, in mercy to me, hushed up the affair; my son fled, and I became a broken-hearted man. To stay was impossible; Mr. Tremenhere felt this too, so I left, to the deep regret of himself and his angel wife. Little more remains to be said--after awhile, all communication ceased between us, my unhappy boy discovered me, with him I shared the little I had, and he went to America, promising me to reform. I have never heard from him, and I became as Monsieur Georges what you see!" "Do you not remember me?" asked Mary, pale with emotion and memory. "I was Mary Burns, the child whom you have often caressed; I knew I had seen you in days of youth!" Let us pass over the remainder of this scene; Mary told him all that which was strange to him, but what our readers already know. Minnie could but weep in joy, in hope; for now, indeed, she had a rich present to lay at Miles's feet--a mother's fame! "Think, my dear child," he said, when all was told, "that the night your kind heart (for I read it truly) called the shivering old man to your fire, your guardian angel led him in to bring you a blessing. And you will be blessed; doubt it not--here with your husband's love, hereafter with a better than even that, for our good deeds come home to roost far more than our bad ones; there is much mercy around us, poor, weak, mortal children, that we are." CHAPTER XVIII.