“Twice mayor—” began Mrs. Morton.
“Hush, mother!” whispered Miss Margaret,—“don’t work him up.”
“I repeat, sir, what are you?”
“What am I?—your nephew! Who am I? Before men, I bear a name that I have assumed, and not dishonoured—before Heaven I am Philip Beaufort!”
Mrs. Morton dropped down upon her stool. Margaret murmured “My cousin!” in a tone that the ear of the musical coal-merchant might not have greatly relished. And Mr. Morton, after a long pause, came up with a frank and manly expression of joy, and said:—
“Then, sir, I thank Heaven, from my heart, that one of my sister’s children stands alive before me!”
“And now, again, I—I whom you accuse of having corrupted and ruined him—him for whom I toiled and worked—him, who was to me, then, as a last surviving son to some anxious father—I, from whom he was reft and robbed—I ask you again for Sidney—for my brother!”
“And again, I say, that I have no information to give you—that—Stay a moment—stay. You must pardon what I have said of you before you made yourself known. I went but by the accounts I had received from Mr. Beaufort. Let me speak plainly; that gentleman thought, right or wrong, that it would be a great thing to separate your brother from you. He may have found him—it must be so—and kept his name and condition concealed from us all, lest you should detect it. Mrs. M., don’t you think so?”
“I’m sure I’m so terrified I don’t know what to think,” said Mrs. Morton, putting her hand to her forehead, and see-sawing herself to and fro upon her stool.
“But since they wronged you—since you—you seem so very—very—”