Withdrawing the arm with which he still embraced me, he bowed his face
on his hands, and I hardly dared to breathe lest I should disturb the
sacredness of his emotions. "She knows all this now." My heart repeated
the words. Methought the wings of her spirit were hovering round
us,--her husband and her child,--whom the hand of God had brought
together after years of alienation and sorrow. And other thoughts
pressed down upon me. By and by, when we were all united in that world,
where we should know even as we are known, Ernest would read my heart,
by the light of eternity, and then he would know how I loved him. There
would be no more suspicion, or jealousy, or estrangement, but perfect
love and perfect joy would absorb the memory of sorrow.

"And you are married, my Gabriella?" were the first words my father
said, when he again turned towards me. "How difficult to realize; and
you looking so very young. Young as you really are, you cheat the eye of
several years of youth!"

"I was very ill, and when I woke to consciousness, I found myself shorn
of the glory of womanhood,--my long hair."

"You are so like my Rosalie. Your face, your eyes, your smile; and I
feel that you have her pure and loving heart. Heaven preserve it from
the blight that fell on hers!"

The smile faded from my lip, and a quick sigh that I could not repress
saddened its expression. The eyes of my father were bent anxiously on
me.

"I long to see the husband of my child," said he. "Is he not with you?"

"No, my father, he is far away. Do not speak of him now, I can only
think of you."

"If he is faithless to a charge so dear," exclaimed St. James, with a
kindling glance.

"Nay, father; but I have so much to tell, so much to hear, my brain is
dizzy with the thought. You shall have all my confidence, believe me you
shall; and oh, how sweet it is to think that I have a father's breast to
lean upon, a father's arms to shelter me, though the storms of life may
blow cold and dreary round me,--and such a father!--after feeling such
anguish and shame from my supposed parentage. Poor Richard! how I pity
him!"

"You love him, then? Believing him your brother, you have loved him as
such?"

"I could not love him better were he indeed my brother. He was the
friend of my childhood," and a crimson hue stole over my face at the
remembrance of a love more passionate than a brother's. "He is gifted
with every good and noble quality, every pure and generous