Happily indeed flew those evening hours unheeded by the young lovers. Grahame, on the entrance of his happy child, folded her to his bosom; his blessing descended on her head, mingled with tears, which sprung at once from a father's love and self-reproach at all the suffering his irritability had occasioned her. And that evening Lilla indeed felt that all her sorrows, all her struggles, all her dutiful forbearance, were rewarded. Not only was her long-cherished love returned, not only did she feel that in a few short months she should be her Edward's own, that he, the brave, the gallant, honoured sailor, had chosen her in preference to any of those fairer and nobler maidens with whom he had so often associated, but her father, her dear father, was more like himself than he had been since her mother's death. He looked, he spoke the Montrose Grahame we have known him in former years. Edward had ever been a favourite with him, but he and Lilla had been so intimate from their earliest childhood, that he had never thought of him as a son; and when the truth was known, so truly did Grahame rejoice, that the bitterness in his earthly cup was well-nigh drowned by its present sweetness. Innumerable were the questions both Lilla and Grahame had to ask, and Edward answered all with that peculiar joyousness which ever threw a charm around him. The adventures of his voyage, his dangers, the extraordinary means of his long-lost uncle being instrumental in his preservation, Lord Delmont's varied tale, all was animatedly discussed till a late hour. A smile was on Grahame's lip, as his now awakened eye recalled the drooping spirits and fading cheek of his Lilla during those three months of suspense, when Captain Fortescue was supposed drowned, and the equally strange and sudden restoration to health and cheerfulness when Ellen's letter was received, detailing her brother's safety. Lilla's streaming eyes were hid on her lover's shoulder as he detailed his danger, but quickly her tears were kissed away; thankfulness that he was indeed spared, again filled her heart, and the bright smile returned. He accounted for not seeking them earlier by the fact that, while they remained at Richmond, his uncle, whose health from long-continued suffering was but weakly established, could not bear him out of his sight, and that he had entreated him not to leave him till they returned to Oakwood. This, young Fortescue afterwards discovered, was to give Lord Delmont time for the gratification of his wishes, which, from the time he had heard the line of Delmont was extinct, had occupied his mind. Many of his father's old friends recognised him at once. His father's and his sister's friends were eager to see and pay him every attention in their power. He found himself ever a welcome and a courted guest, and happiness, so long a stranger from his breast, now faded not again. To adopt Edward as his son, to leave him heir to his