a grateful monarch enable my Eustace to
enjoy those noblest privileges of greatness for which I pined with
ineffectual desire! I am now old and helpless, tottering on the brink of
eternity, a blank, as far as respects this world. May I then divest my
soul of those passions which will unfit it for the abodes of peace! The
injuries of Walter De Vallance are not irremediable. Still do I clasp my
son to my heart. Affliction has tried the virtues of my children, and
brought me to a sense of my own errors. Let not short-sighted man, who
cannot see the remote consequences of events, cherish revenge. Let not
dust and ashes value its imperfect shows of goodness. Our greatest
conquest is a victory over ourselves. Our noblest title is to be called
obedient servants of the Most High."

Dr. Beaumont wept with pious delight, while Neville, leaning on his
children in a posture of penitent adoration, besought Heaven to pardon
his own sins, and the sins of his brother De Vallance. So entire was his
abstraction, that he was not interrupted by the entrance of Barton,
whose countenance expressed a degree of depression ill suited to the
joyous character of the times. Dr. Beaumont accosted him by the title of
his worthy friend, and the associate of his future fortunes. He
introduced him to Eustace, of whose preservation from the massacre at
Pembroke he was till then ignorant. Barton blessed the protecting hand
of Providence, and explained his apparent dejection, by stating that he
had just witnessed a most awful and impressive scene--a grievous sinner
wounded alike in body and in soul, with no hope of escaping punishment
either in this world or in that which is to come. He soon discovered
that he meant the miserable De Vallance, whom, as he had served in
prosperity, he would not desert in his utmost need, though he alike
detested his private and despised his public character. He described him
as alone, pennyless, comfortless, without resources in himself, or help
from others. His worthy son had not yet discovered the place of his
confinement; he knew not what was become of his son, and among all the
crimes which tortured his conscience, the supposed death of Eustace was
most insupportable. Hopeless of pity, yet desperate from remorse, he had
commissioned Barton to intreat the greatly-injured Neville to forgive
him. Christian principles had already obtained a victory over the
agonizing resentments of wounded honour, and the eloquence of Barto