ouse,--Richard
Avenel holds himself an example to the old race of landlords; and, taken
altogether, he is no very bad specimen of the rural civilizers whom the
application of spirit and capital raise up in the new.

From the wrecks of Egerton's fortune, Harley, with the aid of his
father's experience in business, could not succeed in saving, for the
statesman's sole child and heir, more than a few thousand pounds; and
but for the bonds and bills which, when meditating revenge, he had
bought from Levy, and afterwards thrown into the fire--paying dear
for that detestable whistle--even this surplus would not have been
forthcoming.

Harley privately paid out of his own fortune the L5,000 Egerton had
bequeathed to Leslie; perhaps not sorry, now that the stern duty of
exposing the false wiles of the schemer was fulfilled, to afford some
compensation even to the victim who had so richly deserved his fate;
and pleased, though mournfully, to comply with the solemn request of the
friend whose offence was forgotten in the remorseful memory of his own
projects of revenge.

Leonard's birth and identity were easily proved, and no one appeared to
dispute them. The balance due to him as his father's heir, together with
the sum Avenel ultimately paid to him for the patent of his invention,
and the dowry which Harley insisted upon bestowing on Helen, amounted to
that happy competence which escapes alike the anxieties of poverty, and
(what to one of contemplative tastes and retired habits are often more
irksome to bear) the show and responsibilities of wealth. His father's
death made a deep impression upon Leonard's mind; but the discovery that
he owed his birth to a statesman of so great a repute, and occupying a
position in society so conspicuous, contributed not to confirm, but to
still, the ambition which had for a short time diverted him from his
more serene aspirations. He had no longer to win a rank which might
equal Helen's. He had no longer a parent, whose affections might be best
won through pride. The memories of his earlier peasant life, and his
love for retirement,--in which habit confirmed the constitutional
tendency,--made him shrink from what a more worldly nature would have
considered the enviable advantages of a name that secured the entrance
into the loftiest sphere of our social world. He wanted not that name to
assist his own path to a rank far more durable than that which kings can
confer. And still he retained in