“Where were you born?” John asked, in the same queer way.
“In Glasgow, but my parents both died when I was little more than a baby, and my mother’s sister, who lived in England, adopted me, and I generally was known by her name of Matthews. She came to America when I was about ten years old, and I married here.”
John leaned across the table and held out a shaking hand.
“Little Mysie! Little Mysie! Can it be my little sister, and that all this time I never knew it?”
“Yes, yes, but your name is McClure, not Kennedy.”
“It is Kennedy. I quarreled with my grandfather, who wanted me to marry a wealthy woman, and because I chose the dearest girl in the world who could win no favor from him because she was poor, he refused to see me again. I went to Australia, and there my wife died a year later. I could not go back to my old home. Grandfather had been too hard, too unyielding, and there were some reasons that he should not know where I was, and so I changed my name when I came to America, for I did not know to what desperate straits I might come, though I meant to be an honest man, no matter how poor.”
“John, dear John!” Mrs. Law was by his side. “My own brother! and we have been strangers all these years, and yet have been seeing each other every day for three months. What a strange discovery!”
Cassy left her seat and went around to John’s side.
“Are you my really, truly uncle?”
“I am, my lass, as near as I can make out. It seems straight enough. Your mother there was Mysie Kennedy, and that was the name of my little sister that I’d not seen since she left for the States. She was brought up by my mother’s sister, my aunt Agnes Matthews, and I was left with my grandfather, Alexander Kennedy. If those facts fit, you are my own little niece. I wrote to my aunt when I first came to the States, but the letter came back to me from the dead-letter office. I was not specially proud of my position in the world and so I did not do anything more to discover my relatives. I did not know my sister had married, so how could I tell that Mrs. Jerrold Law was my sister?” He smiled at Cassy’s mother.