ping his hands forcibly together, while
tears started to his eyes--"God knows how earnestly I have prayed to
love you, to forget and forgive these unnatural injuries, which have
cast the shadow of care over the bright morning of youth, and made the
world and all that it contains a wilderness of woe to my blighted heart."

The old man regarded him with a sullen scowl; but whatever were his
feelings (and that he did feel the whole truth of the young man's
passionate appeal, the restless motion of his foot and hand sufficiently
indicated) he returned no answer; and Anthony emboldened by despair, and
finding a relief in giving utterance to the long pent-up feelings which
for years had corroded his breast, continued,

"I rightly concluded that I should be considered by you, Mr.
Hurdlestone, an unwelcome visitor. Hateful to the sight of the injurer
is the person of the injured, and I stand before you a living reproach,
an awful witness both here and hereafter at the throne of God of what
you ought to have been, and what you have neglected to be--a father to
your motherless child. But let that pass. I am in the hands of One who
is the protector of the innocent, and in His righteous hands I leave my
cause. Your brother, sir, who has been a father to me, is in prison. His
heart, sorely pressed by his painful situation, droops to the grave. I
came to see if you, out of your abundance, are willing to save him,
Father, let your old grudge be forgotten. Let the child of your poor
lost Elinor be the means of reconciling you to each other. Cease to
remember him as a rival: behold him only in the light of a brother--of
that twin brother who shared your cradle--of a friend whom you have
deeply injured--a generous fellow-creature fallen, whom you have the
power to raise up and restore. Let not the kind protector of your son
end his days in a jail, when a small sum, which never could be missed
from your immense wealth, would enable him to end his days in peace."

"A _small_ sum!" responded the miser, with a bitter laugh. "Let me hear
what _you_, consider a _small_ sum. Your uncle has the impudence to
demand of me the sum of _two thousand pounds_, which is _his idea_ of a
_small sum_, which he considers a _trifling remuneration_ for bringing
up and educating my son from the age of seven years to twenty. Anthony
Hurdlestone, go back to your employer, and tell him that I never
expended that sum in sixty years."

"You do not mean to dismis