264 Turnaside Cottage.

ing something of her distress ; but I, knowing his
unpunctual ways, thought little of it until the
following morning. Then a letter came from him
with the Sheffield postmark, in which he said that
he should never return. He was of no use, he
said, and only an expense—we should get on better
without him; home was distasteful to him, now
that he saw his love had earned him nothing but
coldness and unfilial disobedience. He could not
turn his daughter out, nor consent to her marriage
with the man whom sheshad chosen ; therefore he
should exile himself. He had long been sick of
the dreary round of miserably-paid lessons ; now
he had found a more congenial occupation, a better
and more lucrative position; and he begged that
we would not seek either to pursue or reclaim him,
for he would die sooner than return.”

“Sir, did you look for him? did you ever find
where he was gone?” J asked. The likeness to
my own case had thoroughly roused my attention
now, and it had passed through my mind more than

 

once that I ought to go in search of my father—to
wander through the world and find him, or lose
myself in the attempt ; and I leaned forward eagerly
to hear what my master had done in like circum-
stances.

“My place was by my mother, and there I