"I repeat my solemn injunction--Do not grieve for me; but strengthen your mind and heart to receive the charge that I now confide to you--my Sidney, my child, your brother! He is so soft, so gentle, he has been so dependent for very life upon me, and we are parted now for the first and last time. He is with strangers; and--and--O Philip, Philip! watch over him for the love you bear, not only to him, but to me! Be to him a father as well as a brother. Put your stout heart against the world, so that you may screen him, the weak child, from its malice. He has not your talents nor strength of character; without you he is nothing. Live, toil, rise for his sake not less than your own. If you knew how this heart beats as I write to you, if you could conceive what comfort I take for _him_ from my confidence in you, you would feel a new spirit--my spirit--my mother-spirit of love, and forethought, and vigilance, enter into you while you read. See him when I am gone--comfort and soothe him. Happily he is too young yet to know all his loss; and do not let him think unkindly of me in the days to come, for he is a child now, and they may poison his mind against me more easily than they can yours. Think, if he is unhappy hereafter, he may forget how I loved him, he may curse those who gave him birth. Forgive me all this, Philip, my son, and heed it well. "And now, where you find this letter, you will see a key; it opens a well in the bureau in which I have hoarded my little savings. You will see that I have not died in poverty. Take what there is; young as you are, you may want it more now than hereafter. But hold it in trust for your brother as well as yourself. If he is harshly treated (and you will go and see him, and you will remember that he would writhe under what you might scarcely feel), or if they overtask him (he is so young to work), yet it may find him a home near you. God watch over and guard you both! You are orphans now. But HE has told even the orphans to call him 'Father!'" When he had read this letter, Philip Morton fell upon his knees, and prayed. CHAPTER II. "His curse! Dost comprehend what that word means? Shot from a father's angry breath." JAMES SHIRLEY: _The Brothers_. "This term is fatal, and affrights me."--Ibid. "Those fond philosophers that magnify Our human nature . . . . . . Conversed but little with the world-they knew not The fierce vexation of community!"--Ibid.