“Was I ever so beautiful, Herman?”
Ross bent down, and kissed her forehead.
“But you have not told me how you found all this out. We must have good proof; a doubt would kill me now. Ah, me! how strange this happiness seems.”
“I did not come to you, Elizabeth, without proof, though the very face of our child is enough. Come here, and see if you remember this!”
Ross took the shawl from a table, where it had been laid and shook out its folds.
Mrs. Lambert uttered an astonished cry and stood gazing on it, shrinking back a little as one retreats from the touch of a shroud.
“It was my mother’s,” she said at last. “I remember wrapping the child in it, praying her to pity me if angels in Heaven could feel pity. Oh I remember it so well.”
“When our Eva—”
“Our Eva,” whispered Mrs. Lambert, clasping her hands so softly that he went on, without heeding the pathetic interruption.
“When our Eva was found on the bank of the river, this shawl was wrapped about her. There was some coral too.”