ter; and
Madeline, who had hitherto sat absorbed and silent by the window, now
approached Walter, and offered him her hand.

"Forgive me, my dear cousin," she said, in her softest voice. "I feel
that I was hasty, and to blame. Believe me, I am now at least grateful,
warmly grateful, for the kindness of your motives."

"Not so," said Walter, bitterly, "the advice of a friend is only
meanness."

"Come, come, forgive me; pray, do not let us part unkindly. When did we
ever quarrel before? I was wrong, grievously wrong--I will perform any
penance you may enjoin."

"Agreed then, follow my admonitions."

"Ah! any thing else," said Madeline, gravely, and colouring deeply.

Walter said no more; he pressed her hand lightly and turned away.

"Is all forgiven?" said she, in so bewitching a tone, and with so bright
a smile, that Walter, against his conscience, answered, "Yes."

The sisters left the room. I know not which of the two received his last
glance.

Lester now returned with the letters. "There is one charge, my dear
boy," said he, in concluding the moral injunctions and experienced
suggestions with which the young generally leave the ancestral home
(whether practically benefited or not by the legacy, may be matter
of question)--"there is one charge which I need not entrust to your
ingenuity and zeal. You know my strong conviction, that your father, my
poor brother, still lives. Is it necessary for me to tell you to exert
yourself by all ways and in all means to discover some clue to his fate?
Who knows," added Lester, with a smile, "but that you may find him a
rich nabob. I confess that I should feel but little surprise if it
were so; but at all events you will make every possible inquiry. I have
written down in this paper the few particulars concerning him which I
have been enabled to glean since he left his home; the places where
he was last seen, the false names he assumed, I shall watch with great
anxiety for any fuller success to your researches."

"You needed not, my dear uncle," said Walter seriously, "to have spoken
to me on this subject. No one, not even yourself, can have felt what
I have; can have cherished the same anxiety, nursed the same hope,
indulged the same conjecture. I have not, it is true, often of late
years spoken to you on a matter so near to us both, but I have spent
whole hours in guesses at my father's fate, and in dreams that for me
was reserved the proud task to discover it. I will n