loom in the eye of Neville, which indicated a mind
too much absorbed by its own feelings to enjoy the badinage of happy
lovers, or to listen to the suggestions of wisdom and devotion. "Is our
dear father ill?" was the alarmed inquiry of Isabel. "Has the surprise
of my return overpowered him?" said Eustace. "Will not affliction allow
her victim a few years respite, before the effects of her early
visitations conduct him to the grave?"

It was the privilege of that true minister of Heaven who tranquillized
his youthful impatience, to penetrate into the secret feelings of the
man of sorrows. Inattentive to every other subject, Dr. Beaumont
perceived that he was roused by the name of Walter De Vallance, and
therefore led Eustace to describe his present situation. The tortures of
a guilty conscience, added to his constitutional timidity, had totally
extinguished those faint beams of hope and ambition which led him, in
every previous change of affairs, to project his own security or
advancement. To usurpers and mal-contents of every description he
thought he might either be useful or formidable; but from the returning
King, welcomed with rapture by a repentant nation, a versatile traitor,
who had betrayed the counsels of the royal martyr, could not expect even
mercy. Too well known both for his rank and his provocations, to hope to
shelter in obscurity, he had no resource but to fly to some distant
land; and he proposed retreating to those colonies in America which were
peopled under the influence of republican principles. But he had not
proceeded many stages from London before he fell sick. His perturbed
mind so far betrayed him to his host as to show he was one of those whom
the happy change in public affairs compelled to fly from England, and he
was immediately suspected to be one of the late King's judges, who,
having imbrued their hands in royal blood, were, by the consent of all
parties, reserved as an atonement to public justice. He was therefore
seized, hurried back to London, and thrown into close confinement. His
son and Eustace learned these particulars by stopping at the inn which
had been the scene of his arrest; and the former, from some
circumstances discovering the prisoner to be his father, deputed Eustace
to plead his unchanged love and ardent hopes to his dearest Isabel,
while he himself hastened to protect and solace his wretched parent with
a hope, that by interposing his own unquestioned loyalty as a sure