e father's
sadness.

And worst of all--Maria's utter loss--that dear, warm-hearted, innocent,
ill-used, and yet beloved daughter. Why did he spurn her away? and keep
her away so long?--oh, hard heart, hard heart! Was she not innocent,
after all? and John, bad John, too probably the forger of that letter,
as the forger of this will? And now that he should give his life to see
her, and kiss her, and--no, no, not forgive her, but pray to be forgiven
by her--"Where is she? why doesn't she come to hold up my poor weak
head--to see how fervently my dead old heart has at last learnt to
love--to help a bad, and hard, a pardoned and penitent old man to die in
perfect peace--to pray with me, for me, to God, our God, my daughter!
Where is she--how can I find her out--why will she not come to me all
this sorrowful year? Oh come, come, dear child--our Father send thee to
me--come and bless me ere I die--come, my Maria!"

Magical, or contrived, as it may seem to us, the poor old man was
actually bemoaning himself thus, when our dear heroine of the Heart
faintly knocked at her old home door. It opened; a faded-looking woman,
with a baby in her arms, rushed past the astonished butler: and, just as
her father was praying out aloud for Heaven to speed her to him, that
daughter's step was at the bed-room door.

Before she turned the handle (some house-maid had recognised her on the
stairs, and told her, with an impudent air, that "Sir Thomas was ill
a-bed"), she stopped one calming instant to gain strength of God for
that dreaded interview, and to check herself from bursting in upon the
chamber of sickness, so as to disquiet that dear weak patient. So, she
prayed, gently turned the handle, and heard those thrilling
words--"Come, my Maria!"

It was enough; their hearts burst out together like twin fountains,
rolling their joyful sorrows together towards the sea of endless love,
as a swollen river that has broken through some envious and constraining
dam! It was enough; they wept together, rejoiced together, kissed and
clasped each other in the fervour of full love: the babe lay smiling and
playing on the bed: Maria, in a torrent of happiest tears, fondled that
poor old man, who was crying and laughing by turns, as little children
do--was praising God out loud like a saint, and calling down blessings
on his daughter's head in all the transports of a new-found Heart. What
a world of things they had to tell of--how much to explain, excuse