eet Harriet," said the young man, "I leave you;
and though it is torture to me to be away from your side, yet I have
resolved never again to see you until I have made the most perfect
search for your brother; until I can win a dearer embrace than any I
have yet received, by placing him before you."

"Would to heaven it may be so!" replied the young lady; "but my
mother--how will I be able to support her when you are gone, dearest
Henry? She is kept up only by the happy strains of hope which your
very voice creates. How shall I, myself unsupported, ever keep her from
despondency? Oh! she will sink--she will die! Remain with us, Henry; and
let us trust to providence to restore my brother to us--if he be yet
alive!"

"Ask it not, my beloved Harriet, I beseech you," said the young man,
"lest I be unable to deny you. If your brother, as is likely, has sought
some foreign land, and remains in ignorance of my recovery from the
wounds I received from him, how shall I answer to myself--how shall I
even dare to ask for this fair hand--how shall I ever hope to rest upon
your bosom in peace--if I do not use every possible means to discover
him? O my dear Elliot--friend of my youth--if thou couldest translate
the language of my heart, as it beats at this moment--if thou couldest
hear my sacred resolve!"--

"Whitaker, my friend! Harriet, my beloved sister!" cried Elliot,
bursting out from beneath the overspreading beech, and snatching his
sister in his arms--"I am here--I see all--I understand the whole of the
events--how much too graciously brought about for me, Father of mercies!
I acknowledge. Let us now go to my mother."

It is in scenes such as this that we find how weak words are to describe
the feelings of the actors--the rapid transition of events--the passions
that chase one another over the minds and hearts of those concerned,
like waves in a tempest. Nor is it necessary. The reader who can feel
and comprehend such situations as those in which the actors in our
little tale are placed, are able to draw, from their own hearts and
imaginations, much fitter and more rapidly sketched portraitures of the
passions which are awakened, the feelings that develop themselves in
such situations and with such persons, than can be painted in words.

The harvest moon was gone, and another young moon was in the skies, when
Whitaker, and the same young lady of whom we before spoke, trode down
the avenue, locked in each other's arms, and