nce began playfully to fondle it, and hold its little
silken head between his hands; but as yet he had not caught sight of the
Trevors.

"It is--O good heavens it is Eric," cried Mrs Trevor, as she flew
towards him. Another moment and he was in her arms, silent, speechless,
with long arrears of pent-up emotion.

"Oh, my Eric, our poor, lost, wandering Eric--come home; you are
forgiven, more than forgiven, my own darling boy. Yes, I knew that my
prayers would be answered; this is as though we received you from the
dead." And the noble lady wept upon his neck, and Eric, his heart
shaken with accumulated feelings, clung to her and wept.

Deeply did that loving household rejoice to receive back their lost
child. At once they procured him a proper dress and a warm bath, and
tended him with every gentle office of female ministering hands. And in
the evening, when he told them his story in a broken voice of penitence
and remorse, their love came to him like a sweet balsam, and he rested
by them, "seated, and clothed, and in his right mind."

The pretty little room, fragrant with sweet flowers from the greenhouse,
was decorated with all the refinement of womanly taste, and its glass
doors opened on the pleasant garden. It was long, long since Eric had
seen anything like it, and he had never hoped to see it again. "Oh,
dearest aunty," he murmured, as he rested his weary head upon her lap,
while he sat on a low stool at her feet, "O aunty, you will never know
how different this is from the foul horrible hold of the _Stormy
Petrel_, and its detestable inmates."

When Eric was dressed once more as a gentleman, and once more fed on
nourishing and wholesome food, and was able to move once more about the
garden by Fanny's side, he began to recover his old appearance, and the
soft bloom came back to his cheek again, and the light to his blue eye.
But still his health gave most serious cause for apprehension; weeks of
semi-starvation, bad air, sickness, and neglect, followed by two nights
of exposure and wet, had at last undermined the remarkable strength of
his constitution, and the Trevors soon became aware of the painful fact
that he was sinking to the grave, and had come home only to die.

Above all, there seemed to be some great load at his heart which he
could not remove; a sense of shame, the memory of his disgrace at
Roslyn, and of the dark suspicion that rested on his name. He avoided
the subject, and they were to