ength upon
the grass, he buried his face in his hands and wept.

Could he have guessed his brother's passion for Elinor Wildegrave, or
had he witnessed his despair on that memorable night that had made him
the happiest of men, he would frankly have forgiven him the ruin he had
wrought.

A strong mind, when it comprehends the worst, rouses up all its latent
energies to combat with, and triumph over, its misfortunes. Algernon was
an amiable man, a man of warm passions and generous impulses, but he was
a weak man. His indignation found vent in sighs and tears, when he
should have been up and doing.

A light step rustled among the underwood--ashamed of his weakness he
sprang to his feet, and saw before him, not the slight form of Elinor
Wildegrave, into which belief busy fancy had cheated him, but the
drooping figure and mild face of his mother, shrouded in the gloomy
garments of her recent widowhood. With pale cheeks and eyelids swollen
with tears, she had followed her injured son to his lonely hiding-place.

"Mother!" he cried, holding out his arms to receive the poor weeper,
"dear mother! what have I done to be thus treated?"

A convulsive spasm choked his utterance; and as she seated herself
beside him on the grass, his head sunk upon her lap, as in other years,
and the proud man's spirit was humbled and subdued like that of a little
child.

"Your father, Algernon, has died, committing an act of injustice, but
for your mother's sake you must forgive him."

Algernon tore up several tufts of grass, and flung them with violence
from him--but he remained silent.

"Your brother, too, my Algernon, though harsh and unkind in his general
deportment, feels for your present situation. He is anxious to make some
amends to you for the injustice of his father. He sent me to tell you
that any sum you may think fit to name, and which you consider
sufficient to settle you in life, shall be yours."

"He sent you--he--the hypocrite! Was it not he who robbed me of my
father's love--he, who has robbed me of my natural claims to a portion
of my father's property? What! does the incendiary think that I am blind
to his treachery--that I am ignorant of the hand that struck me this
blow--that I will stoop to receive as a liberal donation, an act of
special favor, a modicum of that which ought to be my own? Mother, I
will starve before I can receive one farthing from him!"

"Do not be rash, my son"--

"Mother, I cannot be mean. It