e came at last. I was sitting alone, at my usual post beside the
window, when the chaise rattled up to the door; for an instant I started to
my legs; a vague sense of something like hope shot through me, the whole
might be a dream, and _he_--The next moment I became cold and sick, a
faintish giddiness obscured my sight, and though I felt his grasp as he
took my hand, I saw him not. An indistinct impression still dwells upon my
mind of his chiding me for my weakness in thus giving way; of his calling
upon me to assert my position, and discharge the duties of him whose
successor I now was. I heard him in silence; and when he concluded, faintly
pledging myself to obey him, I hurried to my room, and throwing myself upon
my bed burst into an agony of tears. Hitherto my pent up sorrow had wasted
me day by day; but the rock was now smote, and in that gush of misery my
heart found relief.

When I appeared the following morning, the count was struck with my altered
looks; a settled sorrow could not conceal the changes which time and
manhood had made upon me; and as from a kind of fear of showing how deeply
I grieved, I endeavored to conceal it, by degrees I was enabled to converse
calmly and dispassionately upon my fortunes.

"Poor Godfrey," said he, "appointed me his sole executor a few days before
it happened; he knew the time was drawing near, and strange enough,
Charley, though he heard of your return to England, he would not let us
write. The papers spoke of you as being at Carlton House almost daily; your
name appeared at every great festival; and while his heart warmed at your
brilliant success, he absolutely dreaded your coming home. 'Poor
fellow,' he would say, 'what a change for him, to leave the splendor
and magnificence of his Prince's board for our meagre fare and altered
fortunes! And then,' he added, 'as for me--God forgive me!--I can go now;
but how should I bear to part with him if he comes back to me.' And now,"
said the count, when he had concluded a detailed history of my dear uncle's
last illness,--"and now, Charley, what are your plans?"

Briefly, and in a few words, I stated to him my intentions. Without placing
much stress upon the strongest of my reasons--my distaste to what had once
been home--I avowed my wish to join my regiment at once.

He heard me with evident impatience, and as I finished, seized my arm
in his strong grasp. "No, no, boy, none of this; your tone of assumed
composure cannot impose