d she was not
aware that the darkness had been dispelled. She raised her head at his
summons, and as the dazzling light burst upon her sunken eyes, so did
the recollection that this was the fatal morning flash upon her memory.

With a shriek, she again buried her face in the bosom of her husband.
"Ellen, as you love me," said Peters, "do not distress me in my last
hour. I have yet much to do before I die, and require your assistance
and support. Rise, my love, and let me write to my father; I must not
neglect the interest of our child."

She rose tremblingly, and, turning back from her face her beautiful
hair, which had been for so many days neglected, and was now moistened
with her tears, reached the materials required by her husband, who,
drawing towards him the wooden form to serve him as a table, wrote the
following letter, while his wife sat by him with a countenance of
idiotic apathy and despair:--

"DEAR FATHER,--Yes, still _dear_ father,--Before you cast your eyes
upon these characters, you will be childless. Your eldest boy
perished nobly in the field of honour: your youngest and last will
this morning meet an ignominious, but deserved death on the scaffold.
Thus will you be childless; but if your son does meet the fate of a
traitor, still the secret is confined to you alone, and none will
imagine that the unhappy Peters, ringleader of a mutinous ship, was
the scion of a race who have so long preserved an unblemished name.
Fain would I have spared you this shock to your feelings, and have
allowed you to remain in ignorance of my disgrace; but I have an act
of duty to perform to you and to my child--towards you, that your
estates may not be claimed, and pass away to distant and collateral
branches;--towards my child, that he may eventually reclaim his
rights. Father, I forgive you, I might say--but no--let all now be
buried in oblivion; and as you peruse these lines, and think on my
unhappy fate, shed a tear in memory of the once happy child you
fondled on your knee, and say to your heart, `I forgive him.'

"I have dedicated my boy to his king and country. If you forgive me,
and mean to protect your grandchild, do not change the career in life
marked out for him:--it is a solemn compact between my God and me; and
you must fulfil this last earnest request of a dying man, as you hope
for future pardon and bliss.

"His distracted mother sits by me; I would en