"Yes, Madam," replied he, "it is certainly his, and he will one day be the credit and the support of our family!"—"Then I thank providence," cried she, "that my last letter to him has miscarried." "Yes, my dear," continued she," turning to me, "I will now confess that though the hand of heaven is sore upon us in other instances, it has been favourable here. By the last letter I wrote my son, which was in the bitterness of anger, I desired him, upon his mother's blessing, and if he had the heart of a man, to see justice done his father and sister, and avenge our cause. But thanks be to him that directs all things, it has miscarried, and I am at rest." "Woman," cried I "thou hast done very ill, and at another time my reproaches might have been more severe. Oh! what a tremendous gulph hast thou escaped, that would have buried both thee and him in endless ruin. Providence, indeed,"has
