nstitutions seems to defy years and sorrow, evinced itself in
a rapid play of countenance and as much gesticulation as the narrow
confines of the vehicle and the position of a traveller will permit. The
younger man, far more grave in aspect and quiet in manner, leaned back
in the corner with folded arms, and listened with respectful attention
to his companion.

"Certainly, Dr. Johnson is right,--great happiness in an English
post-chaise properly driven; more exhilarating than a palanquin. 'Post
equitem sedet atra cura,'--true only of such scrubby hacks as old Horace
could have known. Black Care does not sit behind English posters, eh,
my boy?" As he spoke this, the gentleman had twice let down the glass of
the vehicle, and twice put it up again.

"Yet," he resumed, without noticing the brief, good-humoured reply of
his companion,--"yet this is an anxious business enough that we are
about. I don't feel quite easy in my conscience. Poor Braddell's
injunctions were very strict, and I disobey them. It is on your
responsibility, John!"

"I take it without hesitation. All the motives for so stern a severance
must have ceased, and is it not a sufficient punishment to find in that
hoped-for son a--"

"Poor woman!" interrupted the elder gentleman, in whom we begin to
recognize the soi-disant Mr. Tomkins; "true, indeed, too true. How well
I remember the impression Lucretia Clavering first produced on me; and
to think of her now as a miserable cripple! By Jove, you are right, sir!
Drive on, post-boy, quick, quick!"

There was a short silence.

The elder gentleman abruptly put his hand upon his companion's arm.

"What consummate acuteness; what patient research you have shown! What
could I have done in this business without you? How often had that
garrulous Mrs. Mivers bored me with Becky Carruthers, and the coral, and
St. Paul's, and not a suspicion came across me,--a word was sufficient
for you. And then to track this unfeeling old Joplin from place to
place till you find her absolutely a servant under the very roof of Mrs.
Braddell herself! Wonderful! Ah, boy, you will be an honour to the law
and to your country. And what a hard-hearted rascal you must think me to
have deserted you so long."

"My dear father," said John Ardworth, tenderly, "your love now
recompenses me for all. And ought I not rather to rejoice not to have
known the tale of a mother's shame until I could half forget it on a
father's breast?"

"John,"