CHAPTER III. "Oh! who would not welcome that moment's returning, When passion first waked a new life through his frame; MOORN. On his arrival in the city of Bristol, Mr. Maclandreth entered the first inn that met his eye. Being a market day the commercial room was crowded to excess. Dissatisfied with the place, he was on the point of leaving; when the landlady, seeing him rising from his seat, offered to take him to a more private accommodation, into which she had, about an hour before, conducted two other strangers. On his entering the room, the dream of the farm-house at once rushed upon his mind, so that he hardly knew where he was, nor what he sought there; for the old man that sat in an arm-chair by the fire, was to the very life, the man that gave him the precious jewel, saying; "Keep it and thou shalt prosper." Having summoned all his philosophy to his aid, the tempest that raged within gradually abated, and he became a little more calm and composed. Still his mind wandered in unknown regions, filled with the most imposing objects, transcending all that he had ever seen, or heard, or felt before; and near which his wildest fancy had never ventured to rove. This delirium of delight having spent itself, he again felt his usual equanimity regaining the empire of his passions. Being, however, once lost, such an empire is ever afterwards to be regarded as something little short of precariousness itself. This sentiment, Maclandreth was on the point of realizing; for the ebbing of his passions was nothing less than preparation for mightier waves by which the master passion, love, overwhelmed all the others at the very outset of their rebellious career. The sight of the fair daughter of the venerable gentleman whose presence had brought with it such strange and new bodings to 'his mind as she gracefully bent over the sacred page, and the music of her voice while the greyheaded father was treasuring with a miser's care every sentence that fell from her lips, in his heart, gave rise to no ordinary feelings in his bosom. All the baser passions stood abashed in the presence of so much purity and love-holy love formed the very soul of his ambition. He felt at once the congeniality of the atmosphere in which he breathed: nor were they less conscious of the charm that his presence scemed to have inspired. Nor can we indeed wonder that their sympathy should have so melted into one common interest, when we are informed that both parties were in quest of the same object. The old man was very much dejected, and could find no comfort except in that exhaustless fountain, the word of God. He had just buried her who had been the sharer of his toils and comforts for nearly forty years; and the. scenes which had so long witnessed their mutual sympathy and enjoyments appeared so fraught with all that recalled the delights of the past and reminded him of the loneliness of the present-that their sight became more intolerable than death itself. It was on this account, and at the suggestion of his daughter, that he had been induced to quit his former residence, hoping that a new abode would be more conducive to the re-establishing of his health, and the prevention of those gloomy thoughts to which he was naturally predisposed. Having secured a small cottage in a tranquil part of the Principality, they were now on the way thither. On hearing these particulars, Mr. Maclandreth entered into a long dissertation on the mysteriousness of Divine Providence by which he had been led into their delightful company, together with the identity of the object of their pursuit. These disclosures imperceptibly drew them closer to each other than they had hitherto ventured. Mr. Maclandreth had unconsciously drawn his chair close to that of Mr. Acehambur (for that, as he afterwards learned, was the name of that venerable gentleman), while Alison, his daughter, was all attention, and so completely absorbed in the conversation that, when dinner was announced, she, to her great |