Alice Herbert--for to her we must now turn--sat by the bedside of her father on the morning of that day, the eventful passing of which we have already commemorated in the chapter just concluded, as far as it affects the greater part of the characters connected with this tale. Joy and brightness were upon her countenance; and in the small and beautiful hand that rested on her lap she held open the packet of papers which had been left her by Langford. She gazed in the countenance of her father with a look of eager and gratified affection, which gave to her features a look of additional loveliness, and added the crowning beauty to the whole. Her voice, too, sweet and melodious as it always was, seemed, at least to her father's ears, to have a more musical tone than ever, as she told him, with a heart thrilling with joy and satisfaction at having such news to tell, that she held in her hand the means of freeing him from the painful situation into which he had been plunged by the events of the night before; and that those means had been furnished to her by him whom she so deeply loved. The feelings of Sir Walter himself were also very sweet; they were sweet to receive such assistance from a daughter's hand; they were sweet from perceiving the happiness which to give that assistance afforded her; they were sweet from the very act of appreciating all her sensations; from the power of understanding and estimating the ideas and feelings of her whom he loved best on earth. They were sweet, but not wholly sweet. There was a sensation mingled with them, as there must almost always be with every enjoyment and delight of our mortal being, which tempered, if it did not sadden--which took some little part off the brightness of the joy. It may be, that such slight deteriorations, that such partial alloys thrown into the gold of happiness, do, like the real alloys which render the precious metals more fitted for the hand of the workman, render our pleasures more adapted to our state of being. At all events, the slight shade of something less than happiness which mingled with Sir Walter Herbert's feelings, was not sufficient to do more than give them a deeper interest. It was the thrill of a fine mind on receiving a benefit. Pride had nothing to do with it; and, yet, when Alice Herbert showed him the various notes and bills of exchange which she held in her hand, a slight flush appeared upon his cheek, a momentary feeling of embarrassment came over him. He would not, however, have let Alice perceive for the world that he felt the least embarrassment; he struggled against it, and conquered it in a moment.