repared to acquit himself
of his mission.

On raising his eyes from the paper he was startled by the appearance of
his father, who, with a stern brow and a quivering lip, stood a few
paces from the table, apparently too much overcome by his indignation
to be able to utter a sentence.

Charles de Haldimar felt all the awkwardness of his position. Some
explanation of his conduct, however, was necessary; and he stammered
forth the fact of the portrait having riveted his attention, from its
striking resemblance to that in his sister's possession.

"And to what do these letters bear resemblance?" demanded the governor,
in a voice that trembled in its attempt to be calm, while he fixed his
penetrating eye on that of his son. "THEY, it appears, were equally
objects of attraction with you."

"The letters were in the hand-writing of my mother; and I was
irresistibly led to glance at one of them," replied the youth, with the
humility of conscious wrong. "The action was involuntary, and no sooner
committed than repented of. I am here, my father, on a mission of
importance, which must account for my presence."

"A mission of importance!" repeated the governor, with more of sorrow
than of anger in the tone in which he now spoke. "On what mission are
you here, if it be not to intrude unwarrantably on a parent's privacy?"

The young officer's cheek flushed high, as he proudly answered:--"I was
sent by Captain Blessington, sir, to take your orders in regard to an
Indian who is now without the fort under somewhat extraordinary
circumstances, yet evidently without intention of hostility. It is
supposed he bears some message from my brother."

The tone of candour and offended pride in which this formal
announcement of duty was made seemed to banish all suspicion from the
mind of the governor; and he remarked, in a voice that had more of the
kindness that had latterly distinguished his address to his son, "Was
this, then, Charles, the only motive for your abrupt intrusion at this
hour? Are you sure no inducement of private curiosity was mixed up with
the discharge of your duty, that you entered thus unannounced? You must
admit, at least, I found you employed in a manner different from what
the urgency of your mission would seem to justify."

There was lurking irony in this speech; yet the softened accents of his
father, in some measure, disarmed the youth of the bitterness he would
have flung into his observation,--"That no man on