So the kind soul was forced to yield to my cousin's entreaties, who promised her, however, that the affair would soon be arranged, and that I should be restored to her.

Ah! how little did he know what fortune was in store for me! My dear mother had some forebodings, I think, that our separation was to be a long one; for she told me that all night long she had been consulting the cards regarding my fate in the duel: and that all the signs betokened a separation; then, taking out a stocking from her escritoire, the kind soul put twenty guineas in a purse for me (she had herself but twenty-five), and made up a little valise, to be placed at the back of my mare, in which were my clothes, linen, and a silver dressing-case of my father's.

She bade me, too, to keep the sword and the pistols I had known to use so like a man.

She hurried my departure now (though her heart, I know, was full), and almost in half-an-hour after my arrival at home I was once more on the road again, with the wide world as it were before me.

I need not tell how Tim and the cook cried at my departure: and, mayhap, I had a tear or two myself in my eyes; but no lad of sixteen is VERY sad who has liberty for the first time, and twenty guineas in his pocket: and I rode away, thinking, I confess, not so much of the kind mother left alone, and of the home behind me, as of to-morrow, and all the wonders it would bring..