"For me?" said Louis, "from whom?" "Its contents will tell you, Senor." When Louis glanced on the superscription, he saw it was the hand-writing of his father. While he broke the seal, Castanos disappeared again. The letter was as follows: "Louis!--It was the dying injunction of your mother to your grandfather Athelstone, that you should be brought up to honour me with a double duty. You can never forget the contents of the letter which she wrote to her infant son from her death-bed, and which your uncle Richard was to open to you on your twelfth birth-day. It told you to love your father as she had done, and to commit yourself in all things to his guidance. "You are now called upon to act by this sacred exhortation. To be obedient in love and in fear, to a parent who received her legacy of tenderness for you, in his own bosom, and who will hereafter pay it with interest from his heart." "Now that she is gone, you are the only creature existing with whom I can identify my own being, that is, communicate my thoughts and my actions without reserve. Your interest is my interest: and till time and experience have given you judgement to guide your own proceedings, my judgement must be yours. You are yet a boy in years; though a manly person, and, I understand, a mind of no common capacity, give you at twenty the appearance of maturity. But remember, it is appearance only. Talents and good dispositions are the implements of wisdom, not wisdom's self, she is born of time and experience, and shews her proof in hard probation. The scenes in which you have hitherto been an actor, amongst the simple inhabitants of a remote province in England, are child's play to the parts you may now be called to perform. I am about to present you to the world, to aspiring, subtle, treacherous mankind!--You must be instructed in every movement; prompted, and supported. I have provided means to these ends; and all you have to do, is to resign yourself with docility to the masters I set over you. Should impertinent curiosity, or refractory wilfulness, or any other perversity in your conduct, traverse my present trial of your character, we never meet! You shall return whence you came; and only as one dead, hold a place in the memory of your father. The child of my spotless wife shall not be denied an ample provision; but I will never cherish as my son, one who is an alien to my spirit. "On the night of your arrival at Vienna, my secretary Castanos has my commands to introduce you to a person, who will give proof of coming from me, by shewing you a duplicate of that picture of your mother, which your grandfather bequeathed to me.--Being so assured, you must revere and obey that person in word and deed, as you would revere and obey me; and ever hope to behold the face of your father, William, "Madrid. "Baron de Ripperda."