“But you are waiting to learn by what title and name this stranger lays claim to so peerless a niece. Know then Ah, here comes Darrell. Guy Darrell, in this young lady you will welcome the grandchild of Sidney Branthwaite, our old Eton school friend, a gentleman of as good blood as any in the land!”
“None better,” cried Fairthorn, who had sidled himself into the group; “there’s a note on the Branthwaite genealogy, sir, in your father’s great work upon ‘Monumental Brasses.’”
“Permit me to conclude, Mr. Fairthorn,” resumed the Colonel; “Monumental Brasses are painful subjects. Yes, Darrell,—yes, Lionel; this fair creature, whom Lady Montfort might well desire to adopt, is the daughter of Arthur Branthwaite, by marriage with the sister of Frank Vance, whose name I shrewdly suspect nations will prize, and whose works princes will hoard, when many a long genealogy, all blazoned in azure and or, will have left not a scrap for the moths.”
“Ah!” murmured Lionel, “was it not I, Sophy, who taught you to love your father’s genius! Do you not remember how, as we bent over his volume, it seemed to translate to us our own feelings?—to draw us nearer together? He was speaking to us from his grave.”
Sophy made no answer; her face was hidden on the breast of the old man, to whom she still clung closer and closer.
“Is it so? Is it certain? Is there no doubt that she is the child of these honoured parents?” asked Waife, tremulously.
“None,” answered Alban; “we bring with us proofs that will clear up all my story.”
The old man bowed his head over Sophy’s fair locks for a moment; then raised it, serene and dignified: “You are mine for a moment yet, Sophy,” said he.
“Yours as ever-more fondly, gratefully than ever,” cried Sophy.
“There is but one man to whom I can willingly yield you. Son of Charles Haughton, take my treasure.”