trial which had
overthrown her reason before her conscience had finally given way.
After some weeks of illness Sir Morgan Walladmor was restored to a
state of convalescence; and, by slow degrees and after many months, to
his wonted firmness of mind. He was then able to bear the recital of
all which had happened; and the news which had recently arrived of
Captain Walladmor's death. Large funds had been sent out to him in
South America by Sir Morgan's friends: with these he had raised a horse
regiment: and at the head of this in the decisive engagement of
Manchinilla he had found at last "the death that he was wooing!" With a
miniature of Miss Walladmor pressed to his lips, he was discovered
lying on the ground of the last decisive charge: and Sir M organ was
satisfied to hear that his son had met the death of a soldier and in a
cause which he approved.
That Bertram was twin brother to Edward Nicholas, the reader will long
have suspected. By the letters of Captain Donneraile and the verbal
communications of Bertram it appeared sufficiently that the wife of
Captain Donneraile (at that time a mate on board the Rattle-snake) and
Winifred Griffiths, being the only two women on board, had cast lots
for the appropriation of the children. The happier lot had fallen upon
Bertram: for, though it gave him up to the cruel spoiler that had
pierced the hearts of his parents, yet had it thrown him upon a quiet
life in a humble village of Germany where he was spared that spectacle
of storm and guilt which had pursued the youthful steps of his unhappy
twin brother. Prosperity had left to Winifred Griffiths for many years
leisure for meditation upon the wrongs she had done to Sir Morgan. And
when affliction visited her, it came in a shape that taught her to
measure the strength of parental anguish: she lost her only child; and
on her death-bed, being now left a widow, she had bequeathed to Bertram
the whole sum of which she had robbed his father: upon which sum he had
supported himself at the Saxon university of Halle, But the disclosure
of his birth and connexions, which she had deferred until her latter
moments, had been cut short by death. What she said however had been
sufficient to direct the course of Bertram to his native country. The
discovery, which she had left imperfect, was now completed by others:
and it shed comfort upon the declining days of Sir Morgan--that, from
the amiable disposition and good sense of the son who was
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