l console him," returned Beaumont, "to find one generous and loyal
enough to forget injuries, when others renounce benefits. Affliction is
sent by Providence, to teach us to recollect our ways. My loyalty does
not make me forget that the King is equally subject to one great Master,
nor am I so desirous to secure his temporal repose as to wish him to
lose the advantages of adversity. Let him by seeing you be taught to
distinguish between flatterers and friends. It will be happy for England
if he regains his high station; it will do good to his own soul when he
comes to give an account of his stewardship, at that tribunal before
which the emperor and the slave must one day stand."

"Beaumont," said Evellin, grasping the Doctor's hand, "you are still
that angel of truth who in my early life led my proud and rebellious
thoughts to seek the consolation of religious humility; but in one
circumstance you must give my weakness way. My gallant boy, ignorant of
his noble birth, pants for military fame with all that generous ardour
which during five centuries distinguished his ancestors. He is the last
hope of an illustrious house. Accuse me not of malice, or of folly, when
I own that, (next to the restoration of my King,) I beg of heaven that
he may be spared to tear the polluted ermine from the shoulders of this
branded rebel, and to purify the coronet of Bellingham from the foul
contamination it receives by binding a villain's brow. Toss this
storm-beaten carcase into any trench where it may in future serve as a
mound against traitors; but let my young nursling be planted where the
tempest that unroots the cedars shall pass over without injuring his
tender growth. You, Beaumont, are a man of peace, bound by your
functions to that bloodless warfare which attacks opinions, not men.
Take him with you, wherever you go; keep him in your sight; cultivate in
him every noble propensity, except his passion for military renown. In
all else he is the son of my desires; and were it not for my peculiar
circumstances, he would be so in this also. Consider him as a young
avenger destined by heaven to punish the guilty, and never let despair
of the royal cause induce you to yield him to his own impetuosity. While
a branch of the Stewart stock remains, fear not, though these cursed
malcontents cut down the royal tree; the scion, watered by a nation's
tears, shall still grow, and the soiled regalia of England again look
splendid among contemporar