He was traversing it with an air of composed and steady deliberation, which even my arrival, although an only son unseen for four years, was unable to discompose.

I threw myself into his arms.

He was a kind, though not a fond father, and the tear twinkled in his dark eye, but it was only for a moment.
"Dubourg writes to me that he is satisfied with you, Frank." "I am happy, sir"-- "But I have less reason to be so" he added, sitting down at his bureau.
"I am sorry, sir"-- "Sorry and happy, Frank, are words that, on most occasions, signify little or nothing--Here is your last letter." He took it out from a number of others tied up in a parcel of red tape, and curiously labelled and filed.

There lay my poor epistle, written on the subject the nearest to my heart at the time, and couched in words which I had thought would work compassion if not conviction,--there, I say, it lay, squeezed up among the letters on miscellaneous business in which my father's daily affairs had engaged him.

I cannot help smiling internally when I recollect the mixture of hurt vanity, and wounded feeling, with which I regarded my remonstrance, to the penning of which there had gone, I promise you, some trouble, as I beheld it extracted from amongst letters of advice, of credit, and all the commonplace lumber, as I then thought them, of a merchant's correspondence.