you merely with a brother's love. Thank heaven! you are
my cousin. Ten thousand winning sweetnesses cluster round this dear
relationship. The dearest, the strongest, the purest I have ever known."

"You will know a stronger, a dearer one, dear Richard,--you do not know
yet how strong."

"I shall never think of my own happiness, Gabriella, till I am assured
of yours."

"Then I will try to be happy for your sake."

"And if it should be that the ties severed by misfortune and distance
are never renewed, you will remain with your father, and I will make my
home with you, and it will be the business of both our lives to make you
happy. No flower of the green-house was ever more tenderly cherished and
guarded than you shall be, best beloved of so many hearts!"

"Thank you, oh, thank you, for all your tenderness, so far beyond my
worth. Friend, brother, cousin, with you and such a father to love me, I
ought to be the happiest and most grateful of human beings. But tell me
one thing, dear Richard, before we part; do you forgive Ernest the wrong
he has done you, freely and fully?"

"From the bottom of my heart I do."

"And should we ever meet again, may I tell him so?"

"Tell him I have nothing to forgive, for, believing as he did, vengeance
could not wing a bolt of wrath too red, too deadly. But I would not
recall the past. Your father beckons us,--he fears the frosty evening
air for you, but it has given a glowing rose to your cheeks!"

My father stood on the threshold to greet us, with that benign smile,
that beautiful, winning smile that had so long been slumbering on his
face, but which grew brighter and brighter every time it beamed on my
soul.

The last evening of Richard's stay was not sad. Dr. Harlowe and Mr.
Somerville were with us; and though the events with which he had been
associated had somewhat sobered the doctor's mirthful propensities, the
geniality of his character was triumphant over every circumstance.

My father expressed to him the most fervent gratitude for his parental
kindness to me, as well as for a deeper, holier debt.

"You owe me nothing," said Dr. Harlowe; "and even if you did, and were
the debt ten times beyond your grateful appreciation of it, I should
consider myself repaid by the privilege of calling you my friend."

No one could speak with more feeling or dignity than the doctor, when
the right chord was touched. He told me he had never seen the man he
admired so much as my fat