About two years after, I felt as if I had awakened from a sleep, and I found myself in a very respectably furnished room, with an elderly lady, who was apparently watching me. I had a somewhat confused remembrance of both her and the room, though I could not divine her name, nor remember how I had become acquainted with her. She also appeared as much surprised as myself, from the earnest and dubious look she directed toward me. She arose from her chair, and introduced herself as Mrs. Burnett, I hardly knew what to say, or what inquiry to make. After a moment, I ventured to ask if I was not staying in her house—to what circumstance I was indebted for that favor, and whether I had not been suffering from insanity?—for that dreadful truth gradually came to my mind. Perceiving that I was restored to reason, she answered all my inquiries, and communicated much more than I anticipated. She informed me how that my father’s old and faithful steward had by some means prevented the confiscation of his property from being executed—how that he had, a few months after my departure, disposed of it, and escaped to London with the proceeds, for the purpose of handing it to me. How that he used great exertions, after his arrival, to find me, and in the midst of them fell sick and died. Before his decease, he lodged the money in the hands of her husband, who was a banker, together with every information he could give which might lead to my discovery. That Mr. Burnett had renewed his efforts, but after several months he abandoned them as useless. That shortly after he was appointed to be one of the inspectors of a metropolitan lunatic asylum, and at one of his visits there, he found an inmate bearing my name. Upon making inquiries from the keeper, and at the house where I had boarded, (where he examined some books and papers which belonged to me,) he satisfied himself that I was the person whom he and the steward had sought for; and as he heard a favorable character of me, he removed me to his house, in the hope of affording better treatment than I was likely to receive in the asylum.
You may suppose this explanation very much surprised me; but the unexpected recovery of the proceeds of my father’s property did not produce much gratification. I was not sorry I now possessed a competence, though I did not feel glad. I felt very grateful to my deliverers, and to Him by whom my life had been spared; but it was accompanied with a recklessness and indifference about my future prospects. My disposition also seemed to have changed into a settled sadness, which has never since altogether left me.
My kind friends wished me to remain with them, but, with many thanks, I declined their invitation. I wanted to leave London, and upon that determination I came to Cornwall, and occupied the little cottage where we became acquainted.
Many years have passed since these trials happened; and as the sweetest perfumes are derived from the bitterest drugs, so these dark clouds have produced many bright and sunny days. True, they are associated with painful reminiscences, but they have been followed with incalculable advantages. Amid their severest strokes I can now recognize the hand of a just but benevolent Father. If in my subsequent career I could bear disappointment without discontent, and misfortune without repining; if I could feel resignation suppressing impatience, and contentment controlling ambition, I owe it to the struggles which I have endeavored to describe. It is in the rugged vale of tribulation that the path to human happiness is found.
LOGAN’S VOW.
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BY EDWARD J. PORTER.