in accepting them."

"I have just received this letter from Lord ----, the minister for
foreign affairs: you will see that he has appointed you to the office
of attache at ----. You will also oblige me by looking over this other
letter at your earliest convenience; the trifling sum which it contains
will be repeated every quarter; it will do very well for an attache:
when you are an ambassador, why, we must equip you by a mortgage on
Scarsdale; and now, my dear Clarence, tell me all about the Copperases."

I need not say who was the speaker of the above sentences: sentences
apparently of a very agreeable nature; nevertheless, Clarence seemed to
think otherwise, for the tears gushed into his eyes, and he was unable
for several moments to reply.

"Come, my young friend," said Talbot, kindly; "I have no near relations
among whom I can choose a son I like better than you, nor you any
at present from whom you might select a more desirable father:
consequently, you must let me look upon you as my own flesh and blood;
and, as I intend to be a very strict and peremptory father, I expect the
most silent and scrupulous obedience to my commands. My first parental
order to you is to put up those papers, and to say nothing more about
them; for I have a great deal to talk to you about upon other subjects."

And by these and similar kind-hearted and delicate remonstrances, the
old man gained his point. From that moment Clarence looked upon him with
the grateful and venerating love of a son; and I question very much,
if Talbot had really been the father of our hero, whether he would have
liked so handsome a successor half so well.

The day after this arrangement, Clarence paid his debt to the Copperases
and removed to Talbot's house. With this event commenced a new era in
his existence: he was no longer an outcast and a wanderer; out of alien
ties he had wrought the link of a close and even paternal friendship;
life, brilliant in its prospects and elevated in its ascent, opened
flatteringly before him; and the fortune and courage which had so
well provided for the present were the best omens and auguries for the
future.

One evening, when the opening autumn had made its approaches felt, and
Linden and his new parent were seated alone by a blazing fire, and had
come to a full pause in their conversation, Talbot, shading his face
with the friendly pages of the "Whitehall Evening Paper," as if to
protect it from the heat, said,--