whether he had concluded or not. The Earl's eyes were fixed upon him
with a stern, intense gaze, as if he would have read his very soul.
Wilton's looks, on the contrary, were so perfectly unconscious, so
innocent of all knowledge that he was doing anything more than writing
an ordinary letter of business, that--if the Earl's gaze was intended to
interpret his feelings by any of those external marks, which betray the
secrets of the heart, by slight and transitory characters written on
nature's record book, the face--he was convinced at once that there was
nothing concealed below. His brow relaxed, and he went on dictating,
while the young gentleman proceeded calmly to write.

"You will be particular," the letter went on, "to inquire what became of
the boy, as his name was not down in the list found upon the captain's
person; and you will endeavour to discover what became of the boat that
carried Lennard Sherbrooke and the boy to the ship, and whether all on
board it perished in the storm, or not."

The Earl still watched Wilton's countenance with some degree of
earnestness; and, to say the truth, if his young companion had not been
put upon his guard, by detecting the first stern, dark glance the
minister had given him, some emotion might have been visible in his
countenance, some degree of thoughtful inquiry in his manner, as he
asked, "To whom am I to address it, my lord?"

The words of the Earl, in directing an inquiry about the fisherman,
the boy, the boat, and the wreck, seemed to connect themselves with
strange figures in the past--figures which appeared before his mind's
eye vague and misty, such as we are told the shadows always appear at
first which are conjured up by the cabalistic words of a necromancer.
He felt that there was some connecting link between himself and the