Mr. Langley’s astonishment was so great, as literally to deprive him for the moment of words. He only remembered Willie Murray as a pale, thin, intellectual boy of fifteen. To recognise him in the tall, stout, somewhat aged-looking man before him, required more imagination than he chanced to possess; but to doubt the identity was impossible. He grasped his hand warmly, and insisted on his giving him that very hour the history of his life. Our readers, however, must be contented with a very brief sketch of these details. Suffice it, that neither Willie nor his father rose to independence without constant toil and unwearying perseverance. Profiting by the trials of earlier years, the elder Murray laboured with an energy and skill which, until his timely release from prison, had appeared foreign to his character. Many difficulties he had to encounter; but once the manufactory established, competence was secured; and as his labour rather increased than slackened, fortune followed. His son’s marked preference for the medical profession grieved him at first, but he lived long enough to see that he had chosen wisely, and at his death left all his children comfortably provided for, each possessing a share in the manufactory which his energy had established. Willie had always yearned to return to England, and did so directly he became a widower, his mother gladly accompanying him. He had finished his medical education in France, had a large practice in America, and, from his general intelligence, proved skill, and wide-handed benevolence, very speedily became popular in England. But amid all the chances and changes of his busy life, neither the fearful temptation of his boyhood nor Edward Langley’s generous kindness had ever been forgotten.
Joyous indeed, and full of hope, was Helen Langley’s bridal morn, though neither pomp nor fashion attended it, such as might have been the case some few years before. On retiring to change her dress, Helen found a heavy packet, directed to Mrs. George Ashley, on her table. It was a purse, containing three hundred sovereigns, with the following brief lines:—
“This is your father’s gift, though it comes through me. I do but return a sum lent by him to me and mine, with the accumulated interest of three-and-thirty years. It is now added to the store earned by Helen Langley’s meritorious exertions.”
“William Murray.”
“Mother!” exclaimed Mr. Langley, after perusing this note, and turning to his now aged parent with some emotion, “do you remember your words, when I told you the money was as freely given, and I expected as little reward as if I had thrown it on the waters, ‘that I should find it after many days?’ You were right, I have found it indeed!”
The Triumph of Love.
Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth,
Unseen, both when we sleep, and when we wake.
Milton.