nevertheless, wearing her away by slow and
painful degrees. The stranger saw this, and scarcely knew in what terms
to shape the communication he had to make, full as it was of ecstasy to
the mother's loving spirit, yet dashed with such doubt and sorrow.

"Can you bear good tidings, Lady Gourlay," said he, "though mingled with
some cause of apprehension?"

"I am in the hands of God," she replied, "and feel that I ought to
receive every communication with obedience. Speak on."

"Your son is found!"

"What, my child restored to me?"

She had been sitting in an arm-chair, but on hearing these words she
started up, and said again, as she placed her hands upon the table at
which he sat, that she might sustain herself, "What, Charles, my darling
restored to me! Is he safe? Can I see him? Restored! restored at last!"

"Moderate your joy, my dear madam; he is safe--he is in my hotel."

"But why not here? Safe! oh, at last--at last! But God is a God of
mercy, especially to the patient and long-suffering. But come--oh, come!
Think of me,--pity me, and do not defraud me one moment of his sight.
Bring me to him!"

"Hear me a moment, Lady Gourlay."

"No, no," she replied, in a passion of joyful tears, "I can hear you
again. I must see my son--my son--my darling child--where is my son?
Here--but no, I will ring myself. Why not have brought him here at once,
sir? Am not I his mother?"

"My dear madam," said the stranger, calmly, but with a seriousness of
manner that checked the exuberance of her delight, and placing his hand
upon her shoulder, "hear me a moment. Your son is found; but he is ill,
and I fear in some danger."

"But to see him, then," she replied, looking with entreaty in his face,
"only to see him. After this long and dreary absence, to let my eyes
rest on my son. He is ill, you say; and what hand should be near him
and about him but his mother's? Who can with such love and tenderness
cherish, and soothe, and comfort him, as the mother who would die for
him? Oh, I have a thousand thoughts rushing to my heart--a thousand
affectionate anxieties to gratify; but first to look upon him--to press
him to that heart--to pour a mother's raptures over her long-lost child!
Come with me--oh, come. If he is ill, ought I not, as I said, to see
him the sooner on that account? Come, dear Charles, let the carriage
be ordered; but that will take some time. A hackney-coach will do--a
car--anything that will bring us there with