t,
encouraged your hopes, and so forth. I view things differently. I
have reason to do so; and from all you have told me of this nobleman's
interest in your fate, I venture to make you this promise, that if Miss
Digby would accept your hand, Lord L'Estrange shall ratify her choice."

"My dear Mr. Dale," cried Leonard, transported, "you make me that
promise?"

"I do,--from what you have said, and from what I myself know of Lord
L'Estrange. Go, then, at once to Knightsbridge, see Miss Digby, show
her your heart, explain to her, if you will, your prospects, ask her
permission to apply to Lord L'Estrange (since he has constituted
himself her guardian); and if Lord L'Estrange hesitate,--which, if your
happiness be set on this union, I think he will not,--let me know, and
leave the rest to me."

Leonard yielded himself to the parson's persuasive eloquence. Indeed,
when he recalled to mind those passages in the manuscripts of the
ill-fated Nora, which referred to the love that Harley had once borne
to her,--for he felt convinced that Harley and the boy suitor of Nora's
narrative were one and the same; and when all the interest that Harley
had taken in his own fortunes was explained by his relationship to her
(even when Lord L'Estrange had supposed it less close than he would now
discover it to be), the young man, reasoning by his own heart, could not
but suppose that the noble Harley would rejoice to confer happiness upon
the son of her, so beloved by his boyhood.

"And to thee, perhaps, O my mother!" thought Leonard, with swimming
eyes--"to thee, perhaps, even in thy grave, I shall owe the partner
of my life, as to the mystic breath of thy genius I owe the first pure
aspirations of my soul."

It will be seen that Leonard had not confided to the parson his
discovery of Nora's manuscripts, nor even his knowledge of his real
birth; for the proud son naturally shrank from any confidence that
implicated Nora's fair name, until at least Harley, who, it was clear
from those papers, must have intimately known his father, should
perhaps decide the question which the papers themselves left so terribly
vague,--namely, whether he were the offspring of a legal marriage, or
Nora had been the victim of some unholy fraud.

While the parson still talked, and while Leonard still mused and
listened, their steps almost mechanically took the direction towards
Knightsbridge, and paused at the gates of Lord Lansmere's house.

"Go in, my yo