ace! and how
dignified was the bearing of her figure, still slender, in spite of her
matronly increase in flesh!

No wonder that she had once fired the heart of his distinguished father!
Now--that sunny glance could not deceive Barbara--now her appearance had
ceased to be unpleasant to him; nay, perhaps even pleased him. And now
she could bear it no longer; from the inmost depths of her heart rose
the cry: "John, my child! My dear, dear son!"

Again, with the speed of lightning, the question darted through Don
John's mind: "Is this the woman whose voice, I was told, offended the
ear? Spiteful, base slander!" How fervent, how gentle, how full of
tender affection her cry had sounded! Not even from the lips of Doha
Magdalena, his much-loved "Tia," had his own name ever echoed so
musically as from those of yonder woman, whom he had just shrunk from
meeting as though it were an inevitable misfortune.

Shame, regret, love, seethed hotly within him. It was long since he had
felt emotion like that which mastered him when her tearful eyes again
met his, and now, in the enthusiastic soul of this favourite of fortune,
whose lofty flight neither glory, nor fame, nor disappointment could
paralyze, in the bosom of this good, high-minded young human being
stirred the consciousness that a great new happiness was in store for
him, and from his lips rang the cry for which Barbara had waited so long
with vain yearning, "Mother!" and again "Mother!"

It seemed to her as if the bright sun had suddenly burst in its full,
dazzling radiance from midnight darkness. Three swift steps took her to
Don John and, no longer able to control herself, she seized one of the
hands which he had extended to her to kiss it; but his chivalrous nature
forbade him to permit this, and at the same moment he had obeyed the
impulse to kiss the face upturned to his with such loving tenderness.

On the way she had pondered long over the question how she should
address him; but now she knew that she need not call him "Your
Excellency," far less "Your Highness." To impose so severe a constraint
upon her poor, poor heart was no longer required and, though interrupted
by low sobbing, she again cried with all the fervour of the most tender
maternal love: "My son! My dear, dear child!"

Then suddenly the words she had vainly sought came voluntarily, and in
fluent speech she told him how her heart had so long consumed itself
with yearning for him, and that she had now