, looking every moment to see Mr. Paralette
enter. But hour after hour passed, and no one came. Then I sent
notes to two or three of my father's friends, whom I recollected,
but met with no response during the day. All this strange
indifference was incomprehensible to me. It was, in part, explained
to my mind on the next morning, when one of the persons to whom I
had written called, and was shown up into our parlor by request.
There was a coldness and reserve about him, combined with a too
evident suspicion that it was not all as I had said. That my father
was not Mr. Ballantine, nor I his daughter--but both, in fact,
impostors! And certain it is that the white-headed imbecile old man
bore but little resemblance to the fine, manly, robust form, which
my father presented three years before. The visitor questioned and
cross-questioned me; and failed not to hint at what seemed to him
discrepancies, and even impossibilities in my story. I felt
indignant at this; at the same time my heart sank at the suddenly
flashing conviction that, after all our sufferings and long weary
exile from our home, we should find ourselves but strangers in the
land of our birth--be even repulsed from our own homestead.

"Our visitor retired after an interview of about half an hour,
giving me to understand pretty plainly that he thought both my
father and myself impostors. His departure left me faint and sick at
heart. But from this state I aroused myself, after a while, and
determined to go and see Mr. Paralette at once. A servant called a
carriage, and I ordered the driver to take me to the store of
Ballantine & Paralette.

"'There is no such firm now, madam,' he said; 'Mr. Ballantine was
lost at sea some years ago. It is Paralette & Co. now.'

"'Drive me there, then,' I said, in a choking voice.

"In a few minutes the carriage stopped at the place I had
designated, and I entered the store formerly kept by my father.
Though I had been absent for eight years, yet every thing looked
familiar, and nothing more familiar than the face of Mr. Paralette,
my father's partner. I advanced to meet him with a quick step; but
his look of unrecognition, and the instant remembrance that he had
not attended to my note, and moreover that it had been plainly
hinted to me that I was an impostor, made me hesitate, and my whole
manner to become confused.

"'Eugenia Ballantine is my name,' said I, in a quivering voice. 'I
dropped you a note yesterday, informi