if you
can recall any thing beyond that."

"Beyond that, mother? Oh, why do you ask? You make me feel so
strangely. Can it be that some things I have thought to be only the
memory of dreams, are indeed realities?"

"What are those things, my child?"

"I have a dim remembrance of a pale, but beautiful woman who often
kissed and caressed me--of being in a sick-room--of a strange
confusion in the house--of riding in a carriage with father to a
funeral. Mother! is there any thing in this; if so, what does it
mean?"

"That woman, Fanny," said Mrs. Claire, speaking with forced composure,
"was your mother."

The face of the young girl grew instantly pale; her lips parted;
and she gasped for breath. Then falling forward on the bosom of Mrs.
Claire, she sobbed--

"Oh, mother! mother! How can you say this? It cannot, it cannot be.
You are my own, my only mother."

"You did not receive your life through me, Fanny," replied Mrs.
Claire, so soon as she could command her voice, for she too was
overcome by feeling--"but in all else I am your mother; and I love you
equally with my other children. If there has ever been a difference,
it has all been in your favour."

"Why, why did you destroy the illusion under which I have so long
rested?" said Fanny, when both were more composed. "Why tell me
a truth from which no good can flow? Why break in upon my happy
ignorance with such a chilling revelation? Oh, mother, mother! Forgive
me, if I say you have been cruel."

"Not so, my child. Believe me, that nothing but duty would have ever
driven me to this avowal. You are now at woman's legal age. You have
a guardian, in whose hands your father, at his death, left, for your
benefit, some property; and this person now desires to settle the
estate, and transfer to you what remains."

Bewildered, like one awakening from a dream, Fanny listened to
this strange announcement. And it was some time before she really
comprehended her true position.

"Not your child--a guardian--property!--What does it all mean? Am I
really awake, mother?"

"Yes, dear, you are awake. It is no dream, believe me," was the tender
reply of Mrs. Claire. "But, remember, that all this does not
diminish our love for you--does not remove you in the least from
our affections. You are still our child, bound to us by a thousand
intertwining chords."

But little more passed between them at this interview. Fanny asked
for no more particulars, and Mrs. Claire did not