De Vallance now required an explanation of Fido's being seen at Worcester; and Dr. Lloyd owned that, finding it impossible to restrain the loyal impetuosity of Eustace, he went to that city to learn the situation of the King, since, if there were any hopes of a prosperous issue, he had consented that they should both join the royal standard. The Doctor further added, that he feared their present comforts could not long continue. The surrender of the Earl of Derby's Castles had introduced the rebel troops into the neighbourhood; and he dreaded lest Eustace should be discovered and recognized. They therefore meditated a voyage to Virginia; and the plan was now suspended by the anxiety of Eustace to hear some tidings from his kindred, and to acquaint them with his situation. The impossibility of sending intelligence of such importance by a public conveyance, in times when the letters and actions of royalists were subjected to the most vigilant scrutiny; and the hazard and difficulty of forwarding it by a private hand had long prevented him from having any correspondence with his family; nor did he know the anguish his supposed murder had cost them. In those times of civil contention the dearest relatives were often long ignorant of each other's fate. So numerous were the instances of cruelty, so multiplied the tales of wo, that they wearied and confused the reciter. Many parents believed their sons safe in a foreign country, who, at last they found, had long since perished in some obscure skirmish, where valour bled unshaded by its deserved laurels. Others, who had lamented the death of their dearest relations, received them back at the King's restoration, as if they had risen from their tombs. The necessity of extreme caution, the frequency of assumed names and personal disguises, and the insecurity and infrequency of written communications, obliterated the traces of identity. Among the less evils of civil war, dividing the ties and preventing the connecting intercourse of social life must be enumerated; and what opinion must those who rejoice in the conversation of a present friend, or open, with trembling delight, a letter from an absent one, form of a nation convulsed by furious discord, when the privation of these blessings is ranked only among its smaller calamities!