aughter
were to be the instrument for effecting a compromise, it was clear that
her engagement with Spencer must be cancelled and concealed. And luckily
Arthur's illness and Camilla's timidity, joined now to her father's
injunctions not to excite Arthur in his present state with any
additional causes of anxiety, prevented the confidence that might
otherwise have ensued between the brother and sister. And Camilla,
indeed, had no heart for such a conference. How, when she looked on
Arthur's glassy eye, and listened to his hectic cough, could she talk
to him of love and marriage? As to the automaton, Mrs. Beaufort, Robert
made sure of her discretion.

Arthur listened attentively to his father's communication; and the
result of that interview was the following letter from Arthur to his
cousin:

"I write to you without fear of misconstruction; for I write to you
unknown to all my family, and I am the only one of them who can have no
personal interest in the struggle about to take place between my father
and yourself. Before the law can decide between you, I shall be in my
grave. I write this from the Bed of Death. Philip, I write this--I, who
stood beside a deathbed more sacred to you than mine--I, who received
your mother's last sigh. And with that sigh there was a smile that
lasted when the sigh was gone: for I promised to befriend her children.
Heaven knows how anxiously I sought to fulfil that solemn vow! Feeble
and sick myself, I followed you and your brother with no aim, no prayer,
but this,--to embrace you and say, 'Accept a new brother in me.' I spare
you the humiliation, for it is yours, not mine, of recalling what passed
between us when at last we met. Yet, I still sought to save, at least,
Sidney,--more especially confided to my care by his dying mother. He
mysteriously eluded our search; but we had reason, by a letter received
from some unknown hand, to believe him saved and provided for. Again I
met you at Paris. I saw you were poor. Judging from your associate, I
might with justice think you depraved. Mindful of your declaration
never to accept bounty from a Beaufort, and remembering with natural
resentment the outrage I had before received from you, I judged it vain
to seek and remonstrate with you, but I did not judge it vain to aid. I
sent you, anonymously, what at least would suffice, if absolute poverty
had subjected you to evil courses, to rescue you from them it your
heart were so disposed. Perhaps tha