'My uncle!'
'Heavens! Mr. Trevor! Is that your name?'
'It is.'
'Oh! God! Oh! God! Oh! God!—Hugh! Little Hugh! My boy! My sweet boy!'
Mr. Elford was almost overcome. In a moment he again cried—'My saviour too! Still the same! Courageous, humane, generous! All that my soul could desire! Oh shield me, deliver me from this excess of joy!'
CHAPTER XVII
The conclusion
One event only excepted, little remains to be told of my story; and that one is doubtless anticipated by the imagination of the reader. To describe the enquiries that passed between me and my uncle, the various fortunes we had encountered, and the feelings they excited, would be to write his history and tediously repeat my own. My difficulties now disappeared. I was the acknowledged heir of a man of great wealth: therefore, I myself am become a great man. Heaven preserve me from becoming indolent, proud, and oppressive! I have not yet forgotten that oppression exists, that pride is its chief counsellor, that activity and usefulness are the sacred duties of both rich and poor, that the wealth entrusted to my distribution is the property of those whom most it can benefit, that I am a creature of very few wants, but that those few in others as well as in myself are imperious, and that I have felt them in all their rigour. Neither have I yet shut my doors on one of my former friends. But I am comparatively young in prosperity. How long I shall be able to persevere in this eccentric conduct time must tell. At present I must proceed, and mention the few remaining circumstances with which the reader may wish to be acquainted.
After my uncle had heard me describe Olivia, and mention the motives which induced me to wish to aid her brother, he immediately determined on taking the journey we had before proposed. We neither of us wished to separate. Robust in 'a green old age,' he had no fear of fatigue from travelling this distance; and it would be a pleasure to revisit, in my company, scenes which would bring my former sports and pranks to his recollection. He heard from me a confirmation of the death of Mrs. Elford; and heard it with the same tokens of melancholy in his face which he had betrayed, when he spoke of her himself.
That I should have wished before I took this journey, short as it was, to have seen Olivia, related all my good fortune and partaken in the pleasure it would excite in her, may well be imagined: but forms, and delicacies, and I know not what habitual feelings, forbad me the enjoyment of this premature bliss. I wrote however, and not only to her but to those tried and invaluable friends who were not to be neglected.