“I felt drawn to her by yearnings of a peculiar kind, and a strange sympathy such as _I_ have never known before or since for any human being. At parting with me, she dropped no tear on my face, but pressing me to her heart with a lengthened and agonized caress, whispered these words in my ears, ‘_my daughter, remember your mother!_’ Mr. Stanley,” she continued, looking at him steadily, “do you see no singular resemblance in me to that strange lady? Methinks I can behold a marvelous likeness.”
As she spoke, a curious similarity in the beloved being before him to that unhappy lady, whose image was impressed upon his memory, struck him in the most forcible manner, thrilling him in addition to Jessy’s words with the suspicion they suggested.
“She was my mother,” continued Miss Ellet. “I know it by an instinct that cannot err. Look, too, how little coincidence of looks, no less than taste, exists between myself and my uncle’s family. Lucy, too, although affectionate and kind, resembles me in nothing. I am a mysterious and lonely being.”
“There maybe truth in what you surmise,” replied Stanley, who had been pondering deeply during her last remarks; “but call not yourself lonely, unless you positively decline the companionship of one who desires no higher pleasure in life than to share it with you.”
“You do not shrink from me, then, because I am thus shrouded in mystery?”
“Nay,” said he, venturing to take her hand, “nothing that could be either surmised or proven in regard to your parentage, could change the feelings or wishes of my heart toward you. Jessy, I sail in a few days for England, to be absent for six months, and would know my fate from you ere I depart?”
There was a pause of a few moments of that expressive kind which such an occasion only witnesses, and Stanley gathered from its stillness that he might deem his suit not rejected.
Some time longer passed, in which the lovers remained alone conversing. Their language was of that kind which none but those who have been in the same situation can properly repeat, and which, therefore, the inexperience of the historian prevents being here repeated.
At length Lucy made her appearance, not like one who had been dealing with spirits, but full of cheerful interest in those earthly beings whom she encountered. Time had passed lightly over her, and she looked as young and blooming as on the night of her marriage. The remainder of the evening passed pleasantly. Stanley mentioned his intended visit to England, and the conversation turned for a while upon the mother country. The hour for family prayers arrived. Henry Elmore read a chapter of the Old Testament in a deep, solemn voice, and all standing up, he prayed fervently.