"Where is she?" exclaimed Culpepper, wildly. "Is she alive, after all?—When I heard of her death I believed it.—Do you know where she is?"
"She is dead," said Colonel Brigham, passing his hand over his eyes.—"I saw her die;—I was at her funeral.—I can bring you proof enough that this is the likeness of Oliver's mother.—Shall I tell my wife of this discovery?"
"You may tell it to your whole family," answered Mr. Culpepper, throwing himself back in his chair.—"You are all concerned in it.—Why, indeed, should it be a secret?"
Colonel Brigham left the room, and shortly after returned, conducting his wife, who was much flurried, and carried an enormously large pocket-book, worked in queen-stitch with coloured crewels. She was followed by Fanny, looking very pale, and bringing with her some sewing, by way of "having something in her hands." They found Mr. Culpepper with his face covered, and evidently in great agitation.
"See," said Mrs. Brigham, sitting down before him, and untying the red worsted strings of the pocket-book, "here's the very fellow to that likeness." She then took out an exact copy of the miniature. There were also some letters that had passed between the father and mother of Oliver, previous to their marriage.
"I keep these things in my best pocket-book," continued Mrs. Brigham; "husband gave them into my keeping, and when Oliver is twenty-one (which will not be till next spring), they are all to go to him."
Mr. Culpepper gazed awhile at the miniature, and then turned over the letters with a trembling hand. "I see," said he, "that there is no flaw in the evidence. This is, indeed, a copy of my daughter's miniature. These letters I have no desire to read, for, of course, they refer to the plot that was in train for deceiving me. And they thought they had well succeeded. But their punishment soon came, in a life of privation and suffering, and in an early death to both. May such be the end of all stolen marriages!—Still, she was my daughter; my only child.—So much the worse; she should not have left me for a stranger."
It was painful and revolting to the kind-hearted Brighams to witness the conflict between the vindictive spirit of this unamiable old man, and the tardy rekindling of his parental feelings. In a few moments he made an effort to speak with connexion and composure, and related the following particulars. After the unsuccessful attack on Quebec, by the gallant and ill-fated Montgomery, a young American officer, who had been severely wounded in the conflict, was brought into the city, and received the most kind and careful attendance from the family of a gentleman who had once been intimately acquainted with his father. The family who thus extended their hospitality to a suffering enemy, were the next-door neighbours of Mr. Culpepper, whose name was then Osborne. Captain Dalzel was a handsome and accomplished young man, and his case excited much interest among the ladies of Quebec, and in none more than in Miss Osborne, who, from her intimacy in the house at which he was staying, had frequent opportunities of seeing him during his long convalescence. A mutual attachment was the consequence, and it was kept a profound secret from her father, who had in view for her a marriage with a Canadian gentleman of wealth and consequence.
When Captain Dalzel was about to return home on being exchanged, he prevailed on Miss Osborne to consent to a secret marriage. Mr. Culpepper acknowledged that on discovering it he literally turned his daughter out of doors, and sent back unopened a letter which she wrote to him from Montreal. From that time he never suffered her name to be mentioned in his presence; and he was almost tempted to consign to the flames a miniature of her, that had been painted for him by an English artist, then resident in Quebec. But a revulsion of feeling so far prevailed, as to prevent him from thus destroying the resemblance of his only child; and he put away the miniature with a firm resolution never to look at it again. Five years afterwards he heard accidentally of Captain Dalzel's having fallen in battle, and that Elizabeth had survived him but a few days.
"And how did you feel when you heard this?" asked Colonel Brigham.