ards him a genealogical table of their family, and showed him that he
was himself the only living descendant in a direct line through an
unbroken succession of males from the period at which this entail was
made.

"And now, Edward," he said in conclusion, "I am prepared to give up
every thing to you. That you have so long been defrauded of your rights
has been through ignorance on my part, and equal ignorance, I am
convinced, on the part of my uncle. You know he paid little attention to
business, leaving it wholly to his agents. I have often heard him
express a wish to examine the papers in the old _escritoire_ in which I
found this deed, saying that they had been sent home by old Harris when
he gave up his business to his nephew--the old man writing to my uncle,
that as they consisted of leases that had fallen in, or of antiquated
deeds, they were no longer of any value except as family records. It was
a just Providence that led me to that _escritoire_, to search for the
missing title-deeds of the farm I was about to sell."

Edward Maitland had sunk into his chair from sheer inability to stand,
and for several minutes after his cousin had ceased speaking, he still
sat, with his elbows resting on the table before him, and his face
buried in his clasped hands. At length looking up, he said, "Horace, let
us burn this paper and forget it."

"Forget! that is impossible, Edward."

"Why?--why not live as we have done? You speak of defrauding me, but
what have I wanted that you had? Has not your purse been as my own? Your
home--has it not been mine? It shall be so still. We shall share the
fortune, and as to the title, you will wear it more gracefully than I."

"Dear Edward! Such proof of your generous affection ought to console me
for all changes, and it shall. I will confess to you that I have
suffered, but it is past. My people----" his voice faltered, his chest
heaved, and turning away he walked more than once across the room before
he resumed--"they are mine no longer--but you will be kind to them,
Edward, I know."

"Horace, you will drive me mad!" cried Edward Maitland. "Promise, I
conjure you, promise me to say nothing more of this."

He threw himself as he spoke into his cousin's arms with an agitation
which Horace vainly sought to soothe, until he promised "to _speak_" no
further on this subject at present to any one. Satisfied with this
promise, and exhausted by the emotions of the last hour, Edward soon
reti