CHAPTER VIII.


"Ellinor (let me do her justice) was shocked at my silent emotion. No
human lip could utter more tender sympathy, more noble self-reproach;
but that was no balm to my wound. So I left the house; so I never
returned to the law; so all impetus, all motive for exertion, seemed
taken from my being; so I went back into books. And so a moping,
despondent, worthless mourner might I have been to the end of my days,
but that Heaven, in its mercy, sent thy mother, Pisistratus, across my
path; and day and night I bless God and her, for I have been, and am--
oh, indeed, I am a happy man!"

My mother threw herself on my father's breast, sobbing violently, and
then turned from the room without a word; my father's eye, swimming in
tears, followed her; and then, after pacing the room for some moments in
silence, he came up to me, and leaning his arm on my shoulder,
whispered, "Can you guess why I have now told you all this, my son?"

"Yes, partly: thank you, father," I faltered, and sat down, for I felt
faint.

"Some sons," said my father, seating himself beside me, "would find in
their father's follies and errors an excuse for their own; not so will
you, Pisistratus."

"I see no folly, no error, sir; only nature and sorrow."