how sue for pardon on his own trespasses, and withhold pardon to another? "Will you not speak to me?" said Mr. Beresford, looking fearfully up, and halfextending his cold and trembling hand. "Will you not accept the atonement of a stricken heart?” "What can I say?" faltered Sydney, desperately wrestling against his own long-bosomed prejudices. "Indeed-in deed, sir, you take me unawares, unprepared." 66 Say, that you will not curse me," implored the self-condemned man ; say, that you will not heap pang upon pangmisery upon misery." "God forbid!" ejaculated Sydney. I am humbled-I am cast down," pursued Mr. Beresford, yielding to frequent paroxysms of tears-" I am bruised, both bodily and spiritually. My children have dropped into the grave. I have seen the earth close upon wife-upon all, save one. She, too, my darling, my Elizabeth!" • His His voice totally failed; he buried his face in his hands, and wept. 66 Why probe old wounds?" soothingly said Sydney, his heart yearning in pity towards his repentant relative. " I implore you, be composed, sir, nor fear reproach from me." Mr. Beresford looked up; he snatched the hand of his nephew; he held it tight clasped within his own. "These awful visitations, these awakenings of the conscience, have set my ill deeds before me," he pronounced. "I have sinned, grievously sinned-sinned against heavensinned against you. I do repent me of the ill. Sydney Beresford, can you call me uncle ?" "Uncle!" faintly repeated Beresford; and the clasp which followed, spoke pardon and reconciliation. VOL. I. I CHAP. CHAP. VIII. IT were tedious, uninteresting, and unnecessary, to the furtherance of our tale, to dive and loiter amid the hidden springs and impulses of a sordid and worldly heart; to explain the early indications, which almost in the cradle, contrasted Jonathan Beresford with his noble-minded brother. Offspring of the same parents, he was educated at the same seminary; taught by the same example; admonished by the same precepts of truth and probity but the good seed, as says the parable, “fell "fell among thorns, and the thorns sprung up with it, and choked it;" for the "cares, and riches, and pleasures of this life," prevented its bringing " fruit to perfection." He was sordid, avaricious, selfish; meanly calculating upon the good things of this world, and how best to se cure cure to himself the loaves and the fishes. Alas! little reflecting, that there is a world beyond this world of shadow; that the deeds done in the flesh, bear true and faithful record; that in the estimate with eternity, the longest life is as a drop of water compared to the wide unfathomable ocean. The departure of his elder brother Sydney, to join the regiment to which he was appointed, opened a field for wild and pitiless speculation. The gradual fading away and death of his mother, melted not the frost of his nature; his thoughts were all chained down and bound in the golden fetters of avarice; his day, his night-visions, filled with schemes and projects for the realization of wealth. He garnered wealth, but he garnered not happiness : his credit was extended; his business prosperous blind Fortune lavished her gifts, but peace dwelt not in his bosom. A brief space, and how changed were the face of things! The greensward grew upon father and brother. All that was mortal of Mr. Beresford, mouldered with the dust of his ancestors. Sydney, slain in battle in a foreign land, tenanted the blood-stained grave of honour. He For a season natural affection mourned, but the time had not yet come for right feeling to influence the actions of Jonathan Beresford: it needed the probe of affliction, to" open the cells where memory slept;" to convince him of the depravity of his own corrupt nature. had a wife he had children-yet his heart yearned not to his orphaned nephew; and when the tale of sorrow reached him in the letter of captain Leslie, his cold and selfish reply, proclaimed him lost and dead to the kindly sympathies of human feeling. The severing of interests, and intercourse, and even knowledge of each other, was thus finally effected:- and whilst Sydney Beresford, under the guardianship of captain Leslie, lived to laud and honour his benevolence - Jonathan Beresford, |