, felt at the loss of her son,
was far surpassed by the indignation of his father, who, with his
consanguineous prejudices, and supercilious contempt for riches
unaccompanied by birth, deemed the claims of his son by blood far
superior to the pretensions of the plebeian trader. He only saw in the
confessions of his son, the result of a deep-laid plot for his
entrapment and ruin, and could only believe his malady to be the result
of a collusion on the part of Miss Williamson and her father, by whose
joint wiles and chicanery the young man's peace of mind had been
destroyed, and he driven from the land. In the firm belief of this, he
wrote to Mr. Williamson, adverting in the strongest terms to the injury
he conceived himself to have sustained at his hands, couching his
epistolary invective in no very polite or considerate language, and
enclosing the young man's letter to his mother as a documentary proof.

This communication had the effect, at first, of raising the merchant's
ire; but, upon more deliberate consideration, his wrath gave way to pity
for the father, in whom, through the haughtiness of his clannish spirit,
he could detect the anguish for a son's loss, and for the young man,
whose sudden disappearance had been to him inexplicable, but in whose
conduct he discovered the workings of an honourable nature. With this
feeling in his breast, he forewent the indulgence of that animosity that
was likely to be occasioned by the letter from the old laird; and he
replied to it in a strain of cordiality and commiseration, disavowing,
on the part of himself and his daughter, the application of any
influence on the feelings of his son calculated to destroy his peace of
mind; and denying, until the perusal of the young man's letter, any
knowledge of his sentiments towards his daughter, and his entire
ignorance of the cause of his disappearance. We may premise, that this
explanation brought no further intercourse between the heads of the
families, and that Mr. Williamson, though he believed that, if the
intimacy between his daughter and young Ferguson had continued, the
esteem which she entertained for his young friend would have developed
itself into a reciprocation of those sentiments which it was evident had
actuated the young man in his confession and flight; yet, at the same
time, he did not conceive it possible, in the absence of any confession
to his daughter, that such feelings could have existed in her breast.
Therefo