He smiled, resumed his mother's epistle, and read the concluding passages, which he had before omitted.

Their sudden turn from reproof to tenderness melted him.

He began to feel that his mother had a right to blame him for an act of concealment.

Still she never would have consented to his writing such a letter; and had that letter been attended with so ill a result?
Again he read Mr.Darrell's blunt but not offensive lines.

His pride was soothed: why should he not now love his father's friend?
He rose briskly, paid for the fruit, and went his way back to the boat with Sophy.