The remainder of the autumn was passed in Lindisfarne by the different members of the Pastor's family, with no change in the tranquil routine of their occupations, and little apparent alteration in themselves.

Sir Anthony had made ample apologies to his nephew, and concessions to his uncle, to justify a renewed reconciliation. He pleaded surprise and infatuation; and as the eccentric planet, whose influence created both, had some time reached its perihelium; it was hoped the attraction would be too powerful to allow of its return. Mr. Athelstone, therefore, permitted his nephew to visit as usual at the castle, till the closing in of winter rendered the shores dangerous, and commanded the emigration of his family to the more sheltered regions of Morewick-hall.

Louis's elastic mind, like the principle of life shooting into every faculty of vigorous manhood, recovered all its spring; and allowing himself to think no more of his father nor of Duke Wharton, than what was sufficient to keep his emulation in active career to attain the patriotic talents of the one, and the disinterested enthusiam of the other; he devoted himself, heart and soul, to the perfect acquirement of every branch of study which could possibly promote the great ends of his ambition. Accustomed to labour, the buoyancy of his spirit never admitted the touch of fatigue. Bodily exertion could not weary his practised limbs; nor diversity of mental pursuits, distract nor overstrain his faculties. In the full power of health, and of a mind which care had never traversed, all things were easy to him. One hour he was absorbed in mathematics, history, or languages; and the next saw him in the chace, with his gun on the moor, or bounding along the icicled heights of Morewick, by the side of Cornelia.

Alice alone had exhibited a change in her person and manners since the visit of the noble Spaniards. She, who used to be the most constant companion of her cousin, now hardly ever joined him in his rambles; and always refused to be his partner in the evening dances, which usually diversified the amusements of the hall, when any of the neighbouring families made a part of its winter fire-side. Her spirits and her bloom were gone; and Mrs. Coningsby at length became so alarmed, that she seriously talked with the Pastor about taking her in the spring to some milder climate. Louis was not insensible to the alteration in his cousin. But those anxious attentions which, in any former indisposition, she had always received from him with grateful affection, were now, not merely avoided, but repelled with evident dislike. At first he attributed this strange conduct, to some unintentional offence on his part; and he tenderly asked her if it were so. She burst into tears as she hurryingly replied in the negative, and left the room. On mentioning the circumstance to Mrs. Coningsby, it only confirmed her opinion of her daughter's illness being a latent consumption; and that her present distaste to what before gave her pleasure, was a symptom of that fatal disorder.

Such was the state of the family; when about four o'clock, one dreadfully severe day in December, a person of a middle age and a gloomy aspect, alighted from a chaise at the door of Morewick-hall; and almost speechless with cold, was ushered into the presence of Mr. Athelstone. The Pastor was alone in his library: and the stranger in brief and broken English, announced himself as the Senor Castanos, confidential secretary to the Baron de Ripperda, and a messenger to the guardian of his son. While he spoke, he presented two packets; one from the Baron, the other from the Marquis Santa Cruz. With his accustomed hospitality, Mr. Athelstone bade his guest welcome; and was enquiring after the health of the Baron and the Marquis, when Louis entered the room. In passing through the hall, the porter told him that Peter had just shewn an outlandish gentleman in to his uncle; and impatient to know whether he came from Spain, Louis hastened to the library.

"My child," said the Pastor, "I believe you are near the goal of your wishes.—This gentleman comes from your father."

The secretary bowed to the son of his patron. And Louis, looking first at him, and then at his uncle, exclaimed—"my father!—and does he—?" He hesitated, he stopped; the eagerness of his hopes interrupted his articulation.

"We will open this packet, and see," returned the Pastor, taking that from the Baron into his hand. But glancing at the shivering figure of his guest, who had drawn near the fire, he did not break the seal, but desiring Louis to ring the bell, requested the Senor to permit the servant who attended, to shew him to an apartment where he should have a change of warm garments, and proper refreshment after so inclement a journey.

As soon as the Spaniard had withdrawn, Mr. Athelstone opened the packet. It presented one for himself, and another for his nephew. Never before had Louis received a letter directed to himself, from his father. Though he always persevered in the duty of addressing his only parent, yet, until this moment, the answers were never more than acknowledging messages through his guardian. It was, therefore, with a peculiar feeling of recognition; a conviction of being now owned by his father's heart as his son; that Louis opened the first letter he had ever received from his hand.—

Its contents were these:

"My dear Son,

"I hear from the Marquis Santa Cruz, that you are worthy the name you bear.—That your acquirements do credit to the liberality of your education; and that you are not deficient in ambition to bring these implements to the test. I offer you an opportunity. Accompany the bearer of this, to the continent.—He is my secretary:—and has my commands to present you to a person there, who will put your talents to the trial. Should the result be to your honour, you shall not be long withheld from the embrace of your father, William

Baron de Ripperda.

"Madrid,
"November, 1725."

Louis pressed these welcome commands to his lips: then turning, to communicate their happy tidings to Mr. Athelstone, he saw the eyes of the venerable man still bent on the other packet; while the spectacles, which he held in his hand, bore tearful proofs how little was his sympathy with the joy that beat in the heart of his nephew. Louis took that trembling hand, and kissed it without speaking.

"I know, my child, that you are going to leave me.—I know that you are glad to go;—and it is natural, but an old man's tears are natural too."

Louis grieved for the grief of his uncle: and anticipated his own pangs in the moment of separation from so paternal a friend; from an aunt and cousins so beloved: but he did not feel the most distant wish to escape these pangs an hour, by delaying the journey that was to draw him nearer to his father, and to the indistinct, but, he hoped, sure objects of his ambition. He was indeed drawn by two attractions: the one tender and persuading; the other, powerful and imperative; and his soul leaped to the latter, as to its congenial element.

In a few minutes Mr. Athelstone recovered his wonted serenity. "The time is now come," said he, "when I must put forth from my bosom the sacred deposit I have so fondly cherished.—Yes, Louis; your spirit, more than your years, demands its active destination; and I will not murmur that the moment for which I have educated your mind and your body, is at last arrived!" He then read aloud, and with composure, the letter which the Baron had addressed to him; but it was not more explanatory than the other, of the circumstances in which he meant to place his son.

The secretary soon after re-entered. On Mr. Athelstone putting some civil questions to him respecting his present fatigue, and his late long journey; he abruptly answered, "That as his arrival had been delayed by contrary winds at sea; and the severity of the season did not promise a more propitious voyage, in returning; it would be necessary for him and Mr. de Montemar to take leave of Morewick-hall the following morning."

The Baron's letter to Mr. Athelstone, told him that Louis must yield implicit deference to the arrangements of Castanos. And in reply to some remonstrance from the Pastor, for a less hasty departure, the Senor coldly observed—"That at Ostend, he and his charge were to meet instructions for proceeding: and should they arrive there a day later than the one fixed by the Baron, the consequence might be fatal to their safety. Indeed, that no appendage should encumber their progress, his Lord had commanded him to deny to Mr. de Montemar the indulgence of taking a servant from England."

Mr. Athelstone made many enquiries, to gather something of the object of so peremptory a summons; but he received no satisfaction from the secretary, who, with even morose brevity, continued to affirm his total ignorance of what was to follow the introduction of his charge to his new guardian. His own office went no further than to conduct Mr. de Montemar by a particular day to the continent: but who he was to meet there, or how he was to be employed, future events must explain. The frank-hearted Pastor, became uneasy at this mystery. And the more so, as from the secretary's hint, (which he appeared vext at having dropped) it seemed connected with danger. "Yet it is his father, who summons him into such circumstances!" said he to himself; "and surely I may trust a father's watchfulness over his only son!"

Louis's imagination had taken fire at what chilled the heart of his uncle. That there was a demand on his courage, in the proposed trial, swelled his youthful breast with exultation. He thought, as yet he had only tried his strength like a boy; in exercise, or in pastime. He wanted to grapple with danger, with the heart and the arm of a man; and for a cause that would sanctify the hazard of his life. "And to something like this," cried he mentally, "my father calls me! He calls me, as becomes the son of his race, to share the labours, the perils, of his glorious career! I am now to prove my claim to so noble a birth-right.—And I will prove it! O gracious Heaven, give me but to deserve honour of my father; and I ask no other blessing on this side of eternity!"

Mr. Athelstone saw that strong emotions were agitating the occupied mind of his nephew, and reading their import, in the lofty expressions of his countenance, he did not check their impulse, by recalling his attention to present objects; but proceeded in silence to open the packet from Santa Cruz: hoping that its contents might cast a light upon the destiny of Louis.

The letter was short: chiefly thanking the Pastor and his family, for their kindness to himself and his son during their visit at Lindisfarne. Writing of Ferdinand, he added that his health was materially improved, though his spirits were yet very unequal. To remedy these remains of his indisposition, he meant to engage himself in the expected hostilities between Austria and Spain, who were likely to quarrel on a question of maritime and commercial prerogative. The Marquis concluded his letter by saying, that he enclosed three packets from Don Ferdinand, as offerings of respect to the ladies of Lindisfarne.

Mr. Athelstone believed he had found a clew to the affair of danger, to which Louis was to be introduced. He did not doubt but that the Baron also meant to engage his son in the anticipated warfare between their Catholic and CÆsarian majesties. The halting at Ostend seemed to corroborate this surmise, as its new commercial company was the very dispute between the rival Powers. But still, the immediate peril which threatened any delay in arriving there remained as unexplained as before.

When Louis perused the Marquis's letter, he also supposed he was called to a military life; and as that was the point to which he had most wistfully directed his glory-attracted eye, the intimation at once fixed his vague anticipations; and rising from his seat, while his thoughts glanced on Wharton's gay demand to write man upon his brow, he smiled on his uncle and said, "this is the Toga virilis that has ever been the object of my vows!"

"God grant," cried the Pastor, mournfully returning his playful smile, "that it may not be steeped in blood!"

"And if found in the bed of honour," replied Louis, "I should not rest the worse for it!"

"Yon sport, my child, with these gloomy suggestions; and may you ever have the same cause for smiling at the advance of death! I know the passion of your soul is to be always in the path of duty; and that in such pursuit, the rugged and the smooth, the safe or dangerous, are to you alike. Nourish this principle as that of your part in the covenant of your salvation. But keep a clear eye in discerning between duty and inclination. Remember, that no enterprize is great that is not morally good: that war is murder, when it commences in aggression; and that policy is villainy, when it seeks to aggrandize by injustice. In short, in whatever you do, consider the aim of your action, and your motive in undertaking its accomplishment. Be single-minded in all things, having the principle of the divine laws, delivered by the Son of God himself, as the living spring of every action throughout your life. Then, my Louis, you may smile in life and in death! You will be above the breath of man, beyond his power to disappoint you in your reward; for it will abide with you in the consciousness of virtue, and a sure faith in an eternal glory."

While the Pastor was yet speaking, Mrs. Coningsby and her daughters entered from a Christmas visit they had been paying in the neighbouring town of Warkworth. They started at sight of a stranger dozing in the great chair by the fire. Overcome with fatigue, Castanos had fallen asleep almost immediately after he had given his last unsatisfactory reply. The entrance of the ladies roused him, and he got up heavily from his seat, when Mr. Athelstone presented him to his niece, and briefly told his errand. Surprize at the suddenness of the summons, and dismay at parting with a companion so dear, overcame Mrs. Coningsby, and she sunk fainting into a chair. Tears stole down the cheeks of Cornelia, and Alice stood motionless, pale, and silent.

After the emotions of the shock of such intelligence had a little subsided; anxious to divert their thoughts, Mr. Athelstone presented his niece and her daughters with Don Ferdinand's three packets; and repeating the young Spaniard's request that each lady would inspect her present alone, he added his own wish, that they would indulge the donor now. The hint was immediately adopted, for Mrs. Coningsby understood its purport. Divining her uncle's tenderness for the sensibility of his nieces, she left him to discuss with Louis the many arrangements necessary to a separation, that might be final to most of the party.

The remainder of the day was hardly long enough, for the preparation of the various comforts each inmate of the hall was solicitous to produce, to render the journey and voyage of their beloved Louis as free of privations as possible. In the consequent bustle, no time was allowed for dwelling on its occasion, or giving way to the regrets which often turned the heart faint in the midst of the body's exertions. "To-morrow, in the hour of parting, we will indulge our sorrow. We will then shew our Louis our love, and our grief at the separation!" With these thoughts, Mrs. Coningsby and Cornelia stilled their often-rising emotions; while Mr. Athelstone, reading in the feverish activity of their services what was passing in their minds, meditated how to spare them and his nephew the agitating hour they anticipated.

When the family parted for the night, it was settled that Louis and his foreign conductor should not leave the hall the next morning until after breakfast; and therefore they should all meet again round that dear domestic table, and there exchange the dreaded word farewell. Mrs. Coningsby observed, that before she slept she was going to write a few lines to Don Ferdinand, to thank him for the fine Moorish shawls his gratitude had presented to herself and daughters, and she would give the letter to Louis in the morning. Then, as was the custom in this affectionate family, on retiring to their rooms, he touched the cheek of his aunt with his lips, and shook hands with his cousins when he bade God bless them!

With a body unwearied, and a mind too excited, to admit of any sleep this night, he was passing to his apartment, when his uncle opened the door of his own chamber, and beckoned him in. The venerable man, there informed him, that he alone of all the family, would bid him farewell the next morning. That he feared the fortitude of Mrs. Coningsby and his nieces in so severe a trial; and had therefore made arrangements to prevent it. Louis listened with gratitude, though with brimming eyes, to the good old man's account of his having ordered the travelling-chaise to the lodge-gate at day-break; and that he had prepared Senor Castanos to be ready at so unexpected an hour, and to permit his charge to see his maternal uncle. In the usual routine of his movements, Sir Anthony had been some time at Athelstone-manor, where he always opened his Christmas hospitalities. As that mansion was on the banks of the Tyne, not far from Newcastle, where the travellers were to embark, his nephew would have an opportunity of paying his parting duty to him, without impeding his journey by going out of the way.

Louis left his kind guardian, with a promise of attending to the first tap at his door next morning; and in a more pensive mood proceeded to his dressing-room. On opening the door, he saw Alice seated by his table. Her lamp stood beside her; and its faint light gleamed upon her pallid features. He started with astonishment; for she had so long estranged herself from his slightest attentions, that Alice was the last person he could have expected to find at such a moment in his apartment. However, he approached her tenderly. On seeing him, she covered her face with her hand, and evidently wept, though silently; for as he spoke and soothed her, (though vaguely, as he could not guess the reason of this solitary visit,) he felt the tears trickle through her fingers on his hand. At last she was able to command her speech, though she still concealed her face; and when she did find utterance, it was some time before she dared touch upon the secret that preyed upon her peace and life. She told him that she was miserable; that her health was consuming under a sense of her deception to the best of mothers, sisters, and of guardians; and that unless she did seize this, her last opportunity of unburthening her soul to the only friend to whom she could do so, without breaking a fatal vow; she felt that she must die, she could not exist much longer under the tortures of her conscience, and the miseries of her heart.

Amazed, and alarmed, Louis listened to her, tried to calm her, and encouraged her to repose a full confidence in him. At length, amidst paroxysms of tears, and agonies of shame, she narrated all that had passed between herself and Don Ferdinand; and that since she had so rashly made him the vow of concealing their attachment from those who ought to know all her thoughts, she had never known a moment's happiness.

Louis was struck dumb with this recital. The brevity of her acquaintance with Don Ferdinand, might yet be long enough to allow his accomplished manners and interesting state, to make an impression on so young and sympathizing a heart; she therefore found a ready excuse with her cousin. But what was he to think of Don Ferdinand? Of the advantage he had taken of her tender and guileless nature, to betray her into a confession and a vow, so sure to sacrifice her peace; and which could bring no gratification to him, but the disgraceful consciousness of a triumph to his vanity!

Louis's fixed silence, while occupied in these thoughts, struck Alice like the voice of condemnation. She gazed distractedly in his face, and exclaimed in despair, "You think I am unpardonable.—You think I deserve to die, miserable and unforgiven! Oh, wretched, guilty Alice,—break, break your heart, for there is none to pity you!" As she uttered this, in a hardly articulate voice, she threw herself back into her chair, sobbing and wringing her hands in bitter anguish. The violence of her emotions recalled Louis to recollection, and soothing her excessive remorse with every palliative that affection could suggest, he at last succeeded in restoring her to some degree of composure. She told him, that her purpose in revealing her wretched story to him at this time, was not merely to unburthen her loaded soul; but to prevail on him to convey a letter to Ferdinand, in which she implored him to release her from her guilty vow of concealment. "I have warned him," continued she, "that if he hold me to this impious pledge, it will not be for long; for I cannot live in my present self-abhorring condition. But, should my life be lengthened under these circumstances, to be my punishment, I will never consent to see his face again, till he has released me from so sinful an engagement."

Louis warmly applauded her resolution.

"Do not praise me," cried she, "do not call it resolution. I am unworthy of approbation for any thing. I do not resolve; I only feel that I can know no happiness, endure no person, but continue to detest myself, till this guilt is taken from my mind, by a full confession, and prayer for my mother's pardon."

She shewed a letter, which had come in the packet directed to her by Ferdinand, and which he had secured her receiving free from observation, by his apparently whimsical request that each lady would inspect her present alone. The letter contained protestations of inviolable attachment, petitions for her constancy; and exhortations to keep their secret, till the success of the plan he had in view, brought him again to her feet. He had inclosed a miniature of himself in the shawl which was his ostensible present to her. "I will never look on it a second time," said she, "till he removes from himself the guilt of holding me in this wicked undutifulness to my family."

Louis engaged, should he not meet him at Madrid, to forward her letter to Don Ferdinand, and to inclose it in one from himself, enforcing her entreaties with his arguments; and giving his thoughts on the subject, as became his relationship to her, and fraternal regard for her happiness. He assured her, he would do it with a scrupulous attention not to irritate the feelings which had excited her lover to deprive him of her sisterly affection. Aware that her self-accusing state of mind, could not bear up against the representation he would fain have made of Ferdinand's entire selfishness in thus binding her, Louis contented himself with advising Alice, as a restitution she owed to her family for all the misery her melancholy and illness had made them suffer, to dismiss as much as possible all painful retrospections; and to console herself with the conviction that she was now re-treading her steps to the path of duty. "Cheer yourself with this thought," said he, "till the tidings shall arrive which will take the seal from your lips. Then you may confess all, and reconciled, by pardon, to your family and yourself, you will again become the happy Alice."

She wept as he spoke. But it was no more the stormy grief of despair; she shed the balmy tears of penitence and hope. It was the genial shower upon the thirsty ground. "You have spoken comfort to me, Louis. I have not been so happy, since the dawn of the fatal morning, when my impious adjuration called down these months of misery upon my wretched head.—Oh, if Ferdinand could have guessed this, would he have denied me such a comforter!"

Louis gently reminded her, that as he was going, she must seek a comforter in a Superior Being; and in the exertions of her own mind: "you have ever, my Alice," said he, "been the idol of your family; and even to this day, been supported with a watchfulness, as if you were still in infancy: yet, you see, how inadequate has been all this anxiety to preserve you from error, and its consequent sorrows! By experience, you must now feel, that the care of the tenderest relations can be of no permanent effect, unless you assist it with your own circumspection and strength. Look not for comfort from one side or another, till you have found its principle in your own bosom; that is to say, till you resolve to act according to your duty. And this is, not merely to grieve over your fault, and yearn to confess it and be forgiven; but to lay a restraint upon your sensibility, and the violence of your regrets; and from this hour to devote the whole of your mind to the re-establishment of happiness in your family.—Return to your former occupations.—Meditate less upon Don Ferdinand and yourself; and think more of your mother, your sister, and your guardian.—For their sakes, try to be cheerful, and you will be so.—In one word, my dearest Alice, remember, that to perform our duty in this world, we must sustain our own virtue, and not habituate ourselves to the uncertain support of others."

"Why, my dear Louis, have I never heard these sentiments before? With such forewarning, I should never have erred."

"You might have heard them often; for my uncle has frequently talked to me in this way in your presence. But, my sweet Alice was not then awakened to such subjects. You regarded them as grave discourses, in which you could be as little interested as in the map of a country you never intended to visit."

"And I went astray in that very country!" cried she, "simpleton that I was; always to turn away from every thing but the pursuits of a child!"

She was anxious to engage Louis to correspond with her; but as he could not write any thing to her that would not pass under the eye of the whole family, he told her she had best rest satisfied with his exertions for her release; and when he had obtained it from Don Ferdinand, he would then write openly, and tell her all his thoughts on an affair so momentous to her present and future happiness.

The hall clock struck one.

Alice rose: she put his hand to her lips, and smiled through her tears:—"I cannot be at this morning's breakfast.—But now—dear, dear, Louis,—best of friends—farewell!"—Her head dropped upon his shoulder, where she struggled with two or three convulsive sobs. He pressed her to his heart, and in vain tried to repel the tears which started to his eyes: they flowed over her face as he supported her trembling steps to the door of her apartment. When he had brought her to the threshold, she uttered a breathless God bless you! and breaking from his arms, threw herself into the room. The door was closed:—he heard her sob:—but tearing himself away, he returned with a heavy load at his heart to his own chamber.