discharge would be granted.  The second letter was dated Portsmouth.  Herbert had arrived!  He was much browner than heretofore, but more robust and manly.  His manners had altered most:  from bordering on the polite and finical, adversity and rough usage had made them more direct and blunt.  The third communication was from London, and stated that the Earl of Plympton had insisted on Herbert making his lordship’s house his home.  Nothing could exceed the friendly warmth with which he had been received by the whole family, especially by the Lady Elizabeth.  After some difficulty, the discharge was obtained, and the letter concluded by actually fixing a day for Herbert’s appearance in the hall of his fathers.

The vastness of Mrs Hardman’s preparations were equal to the greatness of her joy.  The scene of the former reception was to be enacted over again, but with additional splendour.

The time came, and with it the long-lost son.  Mrs Hardman met him on the hall steps, and clasped him in her arms with a fondness she had never evinced before.  But he was impatient.  There was another being whom he longed to fold in his arms.  Mrs Hardman conducted him, impelled by impatience, into her dressing-room, where Catherine waited, trembling and expectant.  Herbert rushed forward and clasped her in an embrace which seemed to pour forth an age of long-suppressed and passionate affection.  The mother looked on in silent delight.  She seemed to share in the lovers’ slightest emotion.

The first raptures having subsided, Herbert gazed upon the face of his mistress.  At the first glance he would have started back, had not the firm affection of Catherine’s embrace detained him.  From the most vivid signs of love and hope fulfilled, his countenance altered to an expression of doubt and disappointment.  ‘Catherine?’ he said in a tone of inquiry—­’my Catherine?’

‘Yes,’ replied the mother sorrowfully.  ‘But how changed,’ replied Herbert somewhat abruptly; ‘how very much changed!’

A mass of thought and recollection, a revulsion of feeling, passed through Catherine’s brain; but tears burst forth to relieve her.  Herbert gradually released her from his embrace, and his mother stepped forward to support her.  She gazed steadfastly at her son, and read in his countenance a presage which she dreaded to interpret.  After a time Hardman withdrew to receive the congratulations of the guests, amongst the foremost of whom were Lord and Lady Elizabeth Plympton.  He had scarcely closed the door, ere Mrs Hardman placed her weeping charge gently in a chair, and sat beside Catherine, holding her hands to her bosom.

At this moment Dodbury entered to share his daughter’s joy.  But what a reverse was here!  Tears, silence, despondency.  He was amazed, disappointed; and anxiously inquired the cause.  ‘My son,’ said Mrs Hardman calmly, ’was a little shocked at Catherine’s altered appearance.  Doubtless, when his first emotions of surprise are over, all the happiness we anticipated will be realised.’  But she mistrusted her own thoughts:  a dark presentiment had cast its shadow over her mind.