“But she has refused Ivon.”
“I tell you she loves him.”
“I am sure that he loves her.”
“And where love is, what power can keep two souls apart! I tell you, Elizabeth, it will be a double wedding, and after that a double household.”
“Go—go and bring Eva!”
CHAPTER LXXI.
A DOUBLE WEDDING.
Mrs. Carter and Eva still remained in the reception-room. The passionate words of Herman Ross had filled them with amazement if not alarm. They could not believe the thing he had so wildly stated.
“If it should be now,” said Mrs. Carter, “if you really are his daughter and my niece, I shall just believe a special Providence sent you under this roof. Only to think how I took to you from the very first.”
“I cannot understand, it all seems so unreal. Not Ruthy’s sister—not related to little James. It is impossible!” answered Eva, in sad perplexity. “Still there was something from the first that made me turn to him. Love, yet not love; such tenderness as brings tears into one’s eyes. Is that the way a child feels towards its father?”
“Well, as I never had a father since I was six years old,” answered Mrs. Carter, “perhaps you’d better ask some one else, but that is a good deal like my own feelings toward brother Herman; for I just worship him.”