"I have punctually received your honoured letter of the----by the hands of your son. The same, however, has not shown himself since, but set off from Hamburgh immediately, without leaving any commission. In peppers we are doing little; cotton goes off heavily; in coffee, the middle sort only is inquired after: but on the other hand molasses maintain their price pleasantly; and in indigo there is not much fluctuation. I have the honour," &c. This letter would have plunged Mr. Tyss and his spouse into no little alarm, if by the very same post another had not arrived from the lost son, wherein he excused himself, with the most melancholy expressions, saying that it had been utterly impossible for him to execute the received commissions, according to his father's wishes, and that he found himself irresistibly attracted to foreign countries, from which he hoped to return home in a year's time with a happier and more cheerful disposition. "It is well," said the old man, "that the younker should look about him in the world; he may get shaken out of his day dreams."--And when Peregrine's mother expressed an anxiety lest he should want money for his long journey, and that, therefore, his carelessness was much to be blamed in not having written to tell them where he was going, the old gentleman replied laughing, "If the lad be in want of money, he will the sooner get acquainted with the real world; and if he have not said which way he is going, still he knows where his letters will find us." It has always remained unknown which way his journey really was directed; some maintain that he had been to the distant Indies; others declare that he had only fancied it; thus much, however, is certain, he must have travelled a great way, for it was not in a year's time, as he had promised his parents, but after the lapse of full three years, that Peregrine returned to Frankfort on foot, and in a tolerably poor condition. He found his father's mansion fast shut up and no one stirred within, let him ring and knock as much as he would. At last there came by a neighbour from 'Change, of whom he immediately inquired whether Mr. Tyss had gone abroad? At this question the neighbour started back, terrified, and cried, "Mr. Peregrine Tyss! Is it you? Are you come at last? Don't you then know it?" Enough,--Peregrine learnt that, during his absence, both parents had died, one after the other; that the authorities had taken possession of the inheritance, and had publicly summoned him, whose abode was altogether unknown, to return to Frankfort and receive the property of his father.