‘As I look at you now, a full-grown man, I seem to see my own poor son once more,’ cried the old lady, with tears of joy in her eyes. ‘You have his face, his features, all his ways. Even the colour of your hair and of your eyes is the same. You are a Farrington, every inch; I know it, I feel it, and everybody else shall own it also, and at once.’
Nothing would please her but that he should assume, without loss of time, the Farrington name and arms.
‘No, not yet,’ he pleaded; ‘I am not entitled to them.’
‘Are you not my grandson? Who shall gainsay that?’
‘I know it, and I glory in it; but still the case is not satisfactorily proved. Besides, if I am to take the name of Farrington at all, it can only be as the head of the house.’
‘You are Sir Herbert Farrington, at this very moment.’
‘I ought to be, perhaps. But you will admit that to say so positively at present would be quite premature. It would not be in very good taste either, and I had much rather let things stay as they are.’
To this Lady Farrington eventually assented, but not with the best grace in the world.
‘At any rate, everyone shall know that I recognise and adopt you,’ she said, with all a woman’s pertinacity. ‘You may be called Mr. Larkins, but you are the son of this house. All I have is yours, now if you wish it, and absolutely so after I am gone.’