of golden hair; while the
eyes, large and yet deep, beamed with a spiritual energy, and shone
like two wells of crystalline water that reflect the all-beholding
heavens.

Now when Venetia Herbert beheld this countenance a change came over
her. It seemed that when her eyes met the eyes of the portrait, some
mutual interchange of sympathy occurred between them. She freed
herself in an instant from the apprehension and timidity that before
oppressed her. Whatever might ensue, a vague conviction of having
achieved a great object pervaded, as it were, her being. Some great
end, vast though indefinite, had been fulfilled. Abstract and
fearless, she gazed upon the dazzling visage with a prophetic heart.
Her soul was in a tumult, oppressed with thick-coming fancies too big
for words, panting for expression. There was a word which must be
spoken: it trembled on her convulsive lip, and would not sound. She
looked around her with an eye glittering with unnatural fire, as if to
supplicate some invisible and hovering spirit to her rescue, or that
some floating and angelic chorus might warble the thrilling word whose
expression seemed absolutely necessary to her existence. Her cheek
is flushed, her eye wild and tremulous, the broad blue veins of her
immaculate brow quivering and distended; her waving hair falls back
over her forehead, and rustles like a wood before the storm. She seems
a priestess in the convulsive throes of inspiration, and about to
breathe the oracle. The picture, as we have mentioned, was hung in
a broad and massy frame. In the centre of its base was worked an
escutcheon, and beneath the shield this inscription:

MARMION HERBERT, AET. XX.

Yet there needed not these letters to guide the agitated spirit of
Venetia, for, before her eye had reached them, the word was spoken;
and falling on her knees before the portrait, the daughter of Lady
Annabel had exclaimed, 'My father!'

CHAPTER V.

The daughter still kneels before the form of the father, of whom she
had heard for the first time in her life. He is at length discovered.
It was, then, an irresistible destiny that, after the wild musings and
baffled aspirations of so many years, had guided her to this chamber.
She is the child of Marmion Herbert; she beholds her lost parent. That
being of supernatural beauty, on whom she gazes with a look of blended
reverence and love, is her father. What a revelation! Its reality
exceeded the wildest dreams of