She knelt down beside her, and, taking the white fingers of her benefactress, pressed her forehead against them.
"A confession, Edna! What have you done?"
Mrs. Murray started up and lifted the blushing face.
"Some time ago you questioned me concerning some letters which excited your suspicion, and which I promised to explain at some future day. I dare say you will think me very presumptuous when I tell you that I have been aspiring to authorship; that I was corresponding with Mr. Manning on the subject of a MS. which I had sent for his examination, and now I have come to show you what I have been doing. You heard Mr. Murray read an essay this morning from the—Magazine, which he ridiculed very bitterly, but which Mr. Manning at least thought worthy of a place in his pages. Mrs. Murray, I wrote that article."
"Is it possible? Who assisted you—who revised it, Mr. Hammond? I did not suppose that you, my child, could ever write so elegantly, so gracefully."
"No one saw the MS. until Mr. Manning gave it to the printers. I wished to surprise Mr. Hammond, and therefore told him nothing of my ambitious scheme. I was very apprehensive that I should fail, and for that reason was unwilling to acquaint you with the precise subject of the correspondence until I was sure of success. Oh, Mrs. Murray! I have no mother, and feeling that I owe everything to you—that without your generous aid and protection I should never have been able to accomplish this one hope of my life, I come to you to share my triumph, for I know you will fully sympathize with me. Here is the magazine containing Mr. Manning's praise of my work, and here are the letters which I was once so reluctant to put into your hands. When I asked you to trust me, you did so nobly and freely; and thanking you more than my feeble words can express, I want to show you that I was not unworthy of your confidence."
She laid magazine and letters on Mrs. Murray's lap, and in silence the proud, reserved woman wound her arms tightly around the orphan, pressing the bright young face against her shoulder, and resting her own cheek on the girl's fair forehead.
The door was partly ajar, and at that instant St. Elmo entered.
He stopped, looked at the kneeling figure locked so closely in his mother's arms, and over his stern face broke a light that transformed it into such beauty as Lucifer's might have worn before his sin and banishment, when God—
"'Lucifer'—kindly said as 'Gabriel,'
'Lucifer'—soft as 'Michael'; while serene
He, standing in the glory of the lamps,
Answered, 'My Father,' innocent of shame
And of the sense of thunder!"