ut your stout heart against the world,
so that you may screen him, the weak child, from its malice. He has not
your talents nor strength of character; without you he is nothing. Live,
toil, rise for his sake not less than your own. If you knew how this
heart beats as I write to you, if you could conceive what comfort I
take for him from my confidence in you, you would feel a new spirit--my
spirit--my mother-spirit of love, and forethought, and vigilance, enter
into you while you read. See him when I am gone--comfort and soothe him.
Happily he is too young yet to know all his loss; and do not let him
think unkindly of me in the days to come, for he is a child now, and
they may poison his mind against me more easily than they can yours.
Think, if he is unhappy hereafter, he may forget how I loved him, he may
curse those who gave him birth. Forgive me all this, Philip, my son, and
heed it well.

"And now, where you find this letter, you will see a key; it opens a
well in the bureau in which I have hoarded my little savings. You will
see that I have not died in poverty. Take what there is; young as you
are, you may want it more now than hereafter. But hold it in trust for
your brother as well as yourself. If he is harshly treated (and you will
go and see him, and you will remember that he would writhe under what
you might scarcely feel), or if they overtask him (he is so young to
work), yet it may find him a home near you. God watch over and guard you
both! You are orphans now. But HE has told even the orphans to call him
'Father!'"

When he had read this letter, Philip Morton fell upon his knees, and
prayed.

CHAPTER II.

"His curse! Dost comprehend what that word means?
Shot from a father's angry breath."
JAMES SHIRLEY: The Brothers.

"This term is fatal, and affrights me."--Ibid.

"Those fond philosophers that magnify
Our human nature......
Conversed but little with the world-they knew not
The fierce vexation of community!"--Ibid.

After he had recovered his self-possession, Philip opened the well of
the bureau, and was astonished and affected to find that Catherine had
saved more than L100. Alas! how much must she have pinched herself
to have hoarded this little treasure! After burning his father's
love-letters, and some other papers, which he deemed useless, he made
up a little bundle of those trifling effects belonging to the deceased,
which he valued as memoria