his subsequent arrival on board the vessel where he now found him. Mr. Godfrey listened to it all with the deepest attention, and as the vessel had come pretty nigh London by the time he had concluded, he desired Frank to get together all his clothes, and prepare to come on shore with him. This it did not require very long to do, and in the course of another hour he had bade adieu to Edwards and the Pacific, and was seated in a carriage, and rolling along to the house of Mr. Godfrey, in one of the squares at the west end of London. CHAPTER XXI. GOOD NEWS.-A MOTHER'S GRIEF.-THE RETURN. On thy calm joys with what delight I dream, BLOOMFIELD. THE first thing which Frank did on his arrival was to write to his mother, informing her of his being still living, and at that moment with his kind friend in London. Mrs. Hartwell was sitting alone and melancholy in the little parlour of the Rectory, when this precious letter was brought to her by the post-boy: twelve months before she would have started in rapture at the sound of his knock, but now she had nothing to hope for; she took the letter carelessly from the hand of the old faithful servant who presented it, and she fancied it might be from Mr. Avonmore on the business of her house, or some other matters connected with the village. She opened the seal, after glancing at the address, which was in a hand-writing she was not familiar with, (Mr. Godfrey's ;) she could scarcely believe her eyes, when she saw it commence with "My dearest mother," but when she turned over the page, and there found the real signature of "her affectionate -son, Frank Hartwell," she almost fainted with surprise and ecstasy. A recovery from the very grave could not be more astonishing or unexpected, for she had long mourned him as dead; nor had she for an instant encouraged the idea that he might, by any possibility, have escaped; which, indeed, the fact of her having never since heard from him, would have amply contradicted, had she even supposed the thing possible. For some time she did not know how to act; she could not read the letter, she was absolutely bewildered and frantic between joy and amazement; she rang the bell violently, and as old William entered the room, he thought her almost beside herself, when she told him, in a voice scarcely articulate between weeping and ecstasy, that the letter in her hand came from Frank, her dear and long-lost child, whom she had supposed to be buried in the deep. He entreated her to read it, but she could not; she looked at a few lines, and then left off again, to weep and rejoice in the same breath. William requested her permission to take it up, which he did, and read the whole aloud; there could now be no doubt about the matter; he was absolutely alive; he was in London, he would be home in a day. The wealth of worlds, and the happiness of an age, could not be an equivalent for that delight, the en chantment of that single moment. William immediately rushed out to tell his fellow-servants and the village of the glad news, whilst Mrs. Hartwell sat down to read again and again, and to kiss the dear letter which had made her so happy. She would that night have set off for London, but that Frank in his haste had omitted to date from the residence of Mr. Godfrey; and she was forced, therefore, to remain at home, and await his arrival, which would be on the evening of the next day but one. But ah! when the first burst of pleasure had subsided, her thoughts recurred to one other subject, which lay equally near to her heart, but from which she could never hope to derive any pleasure. Frank would have no kind sister to welcome his return. Emily, her kind, affectionate Emily, was no more. Poor She was sitting on the sofa in a delirium of mingled happiness and pain, when all at once she saw several persons approaching the door; it was |