"He lives!--he breathes!" she continued. She bent over him--she raised his head--she applied a cordial to his lips. He swallowed it eagerly. His eyes began to move--a glow of consciousness kindled in them. With the assistance of her father, she washed and bound up his wounds, and the latter having procured a litter, he had him conveyed to his house at Brussels, and they accompanied him by the way. Louise watched over him; and in a few days his wounds were pronounced to be no longer dangerous, though he recovered slowly, and he acknowledged the affection of his gentle deliverer with the tears of gratitude and the glance of love. As soon as he had acquired strength to use a pen, he wrote a letter to his father, but he received no answer--a second time he wrote, and the result was the same. He now believed that, because he had been a humble instrument in contributing to the fall of a man, in whose greatness his father's soul was wrapped up, he had cast him off, and disowned him. The father of Louise obtained his discharge, and intrusted him with the management of his business. He knew that his daughter's heart was attached, with all a woman's devotedness, to the young Scotchman, and he knew that his affection for her was not less ardent. He knew also his worth; he had profited by his integrity and activity in business; and when the next anniversary of Waterloo came, he bade them be happy, and their hands were united. There was now but one cloud which threw a shade over the felicity of George Nicholson, and that was, that he had never heard from his parents, and that his father would not acknowledge his letters; yet he suspected not the cause. Almost six years had passed since he became the husband of Louise, yet his heart yearned after the place of his birth, and in the dreams of the night his spirit revisited it. He longed once more to hear his mother's voice, to grasp his father's hand, to receive a sister's welcome. But, more than these, he was now rich, and he wished to remove them from penury, to crown their declining years with ease and with plenty; nor could a son entertain a more honourable ambition, or one more meriting the blessing of Heaven. Taking Louise with him, they sailed from Antwerp, and in a few days arrived in London; from thence they proceeded towards the Borders, and the place of his birth. They had reached Alnwick, where they intended to remain for a few hours, and they went out to visit the castle. They had entered the square in front of the proud palace of the Percys, and in the midst of the square they observed a one-handed flute-player, with a young wife and three ragged children by his side, and the poor woman was soliciting alms for her husband's music. The heart of Louise was touched; she had drawn out her purse, and the wife of the flute-player, with her children in her hand, modestly, and without speaking, curtsied before her. George shook--he started--he raised his hands.