you
know? You may be deceived. Who told you? why do you think so?"

"I have seen his remains," said my uncle, with the same gloomy calm. "We
will all mourn for him. Pisistratus, you are heir to my name now, as to
your father's. Good-night; excuse me, all--all you dear and kind ones;
I am worn out." Roland lighted his candle and went away, leaving us
thunderstruck; but he came back again, looked round, took up his book,
open in the favorite passage, nodded again, and again vanished. We
looked at each other as if we had seen a ghost. Then my father rose
and went out of the room, and remained in Roland's till the night was
well-nigh gone! We sat up, my mother and I, till he returned. His benign
face looked profoundly sad.

"How is it, sir? Can you tell us more?" My father shook his head.

"Roland prays that you may preserve the same forbearance you have shown
hitherto, and never mention his son's name to him. Peace be to the
living, as to the dead! Kitty, this changes our plans; we must all go to
Cumberland,--we cannot leave Roland thus!"

"Poor, poor Roland!" said my mother, through her tears. "And to think
that father and son were not reconciled! But Roland forgives him
now,--oh, yes, now!"

"It is not Roland we can censure," said my father, almost fiercely; "it
is--But enough; we must hurry out of town as soon as we can: Roland will
recover in the native air of his old ruins."

We went up to bed mournfully. "And so," thought I, "ends one grand
object of my life! I had hoped to have brought those two together. But,
alas, what peacemaker like the grave!"

CHAPTER III.

My uncle did not leave his room for three days; but he was much closeted
with a lawyer, and my father dropped some words which seemed to imply
that the deceased had incurred debts, and that the poor Captain was
making some charge on his small property. As Roland had said that he
had seen the remains of his son, I took it at first for granted that we
should attend a funeral; but no word of this was said. On the fourth day
Roland, in deep mourning, entered a hackney-coach with the lawyer, and
was absent about two hours. I did not doubt that he had thus quietly
fulfilled the last mournful offices. On his return, he shut himself up
again for the rest of the day, and would not see even my father. But the
next morning he made his appearance as usual, and I even thought that
he seemed more cheerful than I had yet known him,--whether he played a
pa