task to discover it. I will not say indeed that it makes at this moment the chief motive for my desire to travel, but in travel it will become my chief object. Perhaps I may find him not only rich,—that for my part is but a minor wish,—but sobered and reformed from the errors and wildness of his earlier manhood. Oh, what should be his gratitude to you for all the care with which you have supplied to the forsaken child the father's place; and not the least, that you have, in softening the colours of his conduct, taught me still to prize and seek for a father's love!"
"You have a kind heart, Walter," said the good old man, pressing his nephew's hand, "and that has more than repaid me for the little I have done for you; it is better to sow a good heart with kindness, than a field with corn, for the heart's harvest is perpetual."
Many, keen, and earnest were that night the meditations of Walter Lester. He was about to quit the home in which youth had been passed, in which first love had been formed and blighted: the world was before him; but there was something more grave than pleasure, more steady than
