Young, and happily ignorant of the cares and sorrows that distract the bosoms of maturer years, he was soon asleep. 

 The hermit moved to the window, and, after gazing forth some time in silence, murmured, "Wild, wild is the night! Heaven send she does not suffer. I left two bundles on her lonely sill, though my fingers grew stiff with cold ere I had gathered them. Thus do I feebly endeavor to atone for past misconduct. How the wind roars through the pines! O, what memories of long ago rush o'er my soul! I think of Mary as the time approaches when she will be near me. Shall I see her face again? God forbid!" exclaimed he, stamping his foot violently upon the stone floor. After a while he resumed his low soliloquy. "I fear for Edgar," he said, "lest the cold world chill his heart and undo his usefulness, as it has mine. He has my temperament, reserved, sensitive, and with the same accursed capacity for strong, undying attachment. What a fair prospect of fame had I! What honors were ready to crown me when that monster came and blasted them all! Such do I fear will be Edgar's fate. But he must go forth into the world; such was the wish of his parents. I can keep him near me a few months longer by sending him to the Wimbledon seminary, ere he must depart for some distant university or school of art. Then the great world will have opened before him, and I shall see him no more." The hermit suddenly ceased. Tears choked his utterance. 

 "Uncle!" said Edgar, starting quickly from his slumbers, "will you not come and lie down?" 

 "Yes, my boy," answered the sorrowing man, approaching the rude couch. 

 The wintry winds wailed on with piteous, mournful voices; but the Hermit of the Cedars slept at last, 

"A troubled, dreamy sleep."

 CHAPTER XII. 

"Lawyers and doctors at your service.

We are better off

Without them.

True, you are,—but still

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