Those more immediately connected with him--his brother in especial, cherished a secret belief, that wherever Geoffrey Lester should chance to alight, the manner of alighting would (to use the significant and homely metaphor) be always on his legs; and coupling the wonted luck of the scapegrace with the fact of his having been seen in India, Rowland, in his heart, not only hoped, but fully expected, that the lost one would, some day or other, return home laden with the spoils of the East, and eager to shower upon his relatives, in recompense of long desertion, "With richest hand...

barbaric pearl and gold." But we must return to the forsaken spouse .-- Left in this abrupt destitution and distress, Mrs.Lester had only the resource of applying to her brother-in-law, whom indeed the fugitive had before seized many opportunities of not leaving wholly unprepared for such an application.
Rowland promptly and generously obeyed the summons: he took the child and the wife to his own home,--he freed the latter from the persecution of all legal claimants,--and, after selling such effects as remained, he devoted the whole proceeds to the forsaken family, without regarding his own expenses on their behalf, ill as he was able to afford the luxury of that self-neglect.

The wife did not long need the asylum of his hearth,--she, poor lady, died of a slow fever produced by irritation and disappointment, a few months after Geoffrey's desertion.

She had no need to recommend her children to their kindhearted uncle's care.

And now we must glance over the elder brother's domestic fortunes.
In Rowland, the wild dispositions of his brother were so far tamed, that they assumed only the character of a buoyant temper and a gay spirit.