asping the letter to her lips, she
kissed it again and again with passionate transport. Then, as her eyes
met the dark, inquiring, earnest gaze of her eldest born, she flung her
arms round him, and wept vehemently.

"What is the matter, mamma, dear mamma?" said the youngest, pushing
himself between Philip and his mother. "Your father is coming back,
this day--this very hour;--and you--you--child--you, Philip--" Here sobs
broke in upon her words, and left her speechless.

The letter that had produced this effect ran as follows:

TO MRS MORTON, Fernside Cottage.

"DEAREST KATE,--My last letter prepared you for the news I have now
to relate--my poor uncle is no more. Though I had seen little of him,
especially of late years, his death sensibly affected me; but I have at
least the consolation of thinking that there is nothing now to prevent
my doing justice to you. I am the sole heir to his fortune--I have it in
my power, dearest Kate, to offer you a tardy recompense for all you have
put up with for my sake;--a sacred testimony to your long forbearance,
your unreproachful love, your wrongs, and your devotion. Our children,
too--my noble Philip!--kiss them, Kate--kiss them for me a thousand
times.

"I write in great haste--the burial is just over, and my letter will
only serve to announce my return. My darling Catherine, I shall be with
you almost as soon as these lines meet your eyes--those clear eyes,
that, for all the tears they have shed for my faults and follies, have
never looked the less kind. Yours, ever as ever, "PHILIP BEAUFORT.

This letter has told its tale, and little remains to explain. Philip
Beaufort was one of those men of whom there are many in his peculiar
class of society--easy, thoughtless, good-humoured, generous, with
feelings infinitely better than his principles.

Inheriting himself but a moderate fortune, which was three parts in the
hands of the Jews before he was twenty-five, he had the most brilliant
expectations from his uncle; an old bachelor, who, from a courtier, had
turned a misanthrope--cold--shrewd--penetrating--worldly--sarcastic--and
imperious; and from this relation he received, meanwhile, a handsome
and, indeed, munificent allowance. About sixteen years before the date
at which this narrative opens, Philip Beaufort had "run off," as the
saying is, with Catherine Morton, then little more than a child,--a
motherless child--educated at a boarding-school to notions and desires
far