For the first two years after he had turned Herbert Mordaunt from his house, his affairs had gone on prosperously, and his son Felix was all that his heart could have wished him. His brilliant talents were a theme of conversation for more than one fireside-circle, and he was generally looked upon by all as a young man destined, at some future day, to fill a lofty station in the world ; but alas ! the germ of self-will had been too early engrafted in the young sapling for it ever to become a stately monarch of the forest ! At the end of two years strange and painful rumors of his profligacy and dissipated habits began to be afloat, and his repeated demands for money served to confirm them. Mr. Mordaunt took him to task, and censured him for his conduct- not with the sternness of decision and severe tone of authority which it behoves a parent to assume, when reprimanding a child for misconduct, but in a lenient manner that tended rather to hasten than to check his progress along the high-road to ruin. The tone of popular sentiment was now changed, and Dr. Mordaunt was no longer spoken of as the young man of splendid capacity and great promise, but as the abandoned profligate, the frequenter of tippling-houses, and the companion of vicious and unprincipled gamblers ! His former comrades now shunned him as they would a viper, but he heeded it not ; for vice and debauchery had blunted the keen edge of pride- he was completely dead to all sense of shame and honor-every generous and noble impulse was paralysed within him. His demands for money, to squander in scenes of vice and reckless dissipation, became at length so frequent and for such heavy amounts, that Mr. Mordaunt was awakened to an alarming consciousness of the rapidity with which his fortune was being reduced, and forced, though reluctantly, to deny him all further supplies. The parents were now to experience a severe retribution for the forbearance they had exercised in the tutoring of their child ! for when Dr. Mordaunt felt the restraint imposed upon his licentious passions which hitherto had been permitted to pursue their wild and reckless race unchecked , he immediately forged a check, and drew every dollar of the old man's fortune from the bank, in which he had deposited it. The same evening he embarked for England, but the packet ship in which he had taken passage was never heard of. She must have foundered at sea, and every soul on board perished !
Being deprived of their favorite child, Mr. and Mrs. Mordaunt were struck with a sudden consciousness of their cruel treatment to their younger son, and would have sought him out and asked his forgiveness ; but they knew not where to find him, for the postmaster whom Mr. Mordaunt had directed always to return his son's letters, as soon as they arrived, had left the city, and gone he knew not whither. Abandoning all hope of ever again beholding their discarded son, they took a
room in an obscure part of the city, where they continued for some months to eke out a miserable existence , subsisting upon the pittance that remained to them from the sale of their splendid house and furniture, which their necessities had compelled them to dispose of under the hammer. Oppressed by grief and misfortune , Mrs. Mordaunt in a short time sank into the grave, penitently imploring the forgiveness of Heaven for her unnatural conduct toward her son.
After the death of his wife, Mr. Mordaunt was forced either to beg for a support or to become an inmate of the alms-house ; but too proud to receive charity at the hands of those whom he had once considered his inferiors, and too prejudiced to become the latter, he left the scene of his former glory, and with the aid of a few dollars which he had scraped together, reached the town where Herbert Mordaunt resided . Having arrived the evening before, he had that morning set out fully determined to attempt the lowly employment of a mendicant as the means of gaining a livelihood ; and fortunately the first door at which he had summoned resolution enough to stop was that of the child whom he had renounced. Having concluded his narrative, the old man again gave vent to the overpowering tumult of his feelings in a violent flood of tears. Herbert Mordaunt detained his father with him during the remainder of his life ; and no one to have seen him administering to his wants, and endeavoring by every possible care and tenderness to soften the winter of his days, would have supposed that he had once been driven from that father's door, a friendless outcast on the world.
LINES TO THE EVENING STAR .
ILLUMIN'D Star-bright diamond of the skies,
That lingerest yet beyond the twilight gray;
How oft to thee I turn my longing eyes,
And think of her I love, far, far away.
On thee my eyes with chastened pleasure rest
While burning thoughts course swiftly through my mind ;
While hopes and fears alternate rule my breast,
Or Fancy's golden chain my soul doth bind.
And while with longing, ling'ring, anxious gaze,
My ardent look, bright star, I fix on thee;
Doth she I love unto thy trembling blaze,
Turn her fair eyes and give one thought to me?
Oh, could my heart be opened to her mind,
Could she behold her image there enshrined ;
Or could she know with what devotion true
Her form is ever treasured in my mind.
Methinks my constancy her heart would move,
My suit with kindness she perhaps would hear ;
And if she could not bless me with her love,
Would to my memory give, at least, a tear. T. S. C.
