est of
her fortune must be devoted to my father while he lived, though every
shilling of its capital would be settled on herself and her children.
How I blessed her when she accepted me, despite my candour!--how
earnestly I prayed that I might love and cherish and requite her!"
Darrell paused, in evident suffering. "And, thank Heaven! I have nothing
on that score wherewith to reproach myself; and the strength of that
memory enabled me to bear and forbear more than otherwise would have
been possible to my quick spirit and my man's heart. My dear father! his
death was happy: his home was saved; he never knew at what sacrifice to
his son! He was gladdened by the first honours my youth achieved. He
was resigned to my choice of a profession, which, though contrary to his
antique prejudices, that allowed to the representative of the Darrells
no profession but the sword, still promised the wealth which would
secure his name from perishing. He was credulous of my future, as if
I had uttered not a vow, but a prediction. He had blessed my union,
without foreseeing its sorrows. He had embraced my first-born,--true, it
was a girl, but it was one link onward from ancestors to posterity. And
almost his last words were these: 'You will restore the race; you will
revive the name! and my son's children will visit the antiquary's grave,
and learn gratitude to him for all that his idle lessons taught to your
healthier vigour.' And I answered, 'Father, your line shall not perish
from the land; and when I am rich and great, and lordships spread
far round the lowly hall that your life ennobled, I will say to your
grandchildren, 'Honour ye and your son's sons, while a Darrell yet
treads the earth, honour him to whom I owe every thought which nerved me
to toil for what you who come after me may enjoy.'

"And so the old man, whose life had been so smileless, died smiling."

By this time Lionel had stolen Darrell's hand into his own--his heart
swelling with childlike tenderness, and the tears rolling down his
cheeks.

Darrell gently kissed his young kinsman's forehead, and, extricating
himself from Lionel's clasp, paced the room, and spoke on while pacing
it.

"I made, then, a promise; it is not kept. No child of mine survives to
be taught reverence to my father's grave. My wedded life was not happy:
its record needs no words. Of two children born to me, both are gone. My
son went first. I had thrown my life's life into him,--a boy of energy