"You are the person I took you for," replied Mrs. Meridith, looking affectionately at Anna, whose tears flowed afresh; "yet as much altered, perhaps, in mind as in person."
"More, more, I hope, Madam," replied he with emotion; "I am ashamed of what I have been; but how could you know me? I do not recollect any one like you."
"Perhaps not," replied she; "but I have heard of you from Mr. Campbell."
"Oh! then you must despise and hate me!" said he, again hiding his face. "But indeed I am not what I was: and can you tell me," added he, "who are alive of that family? Is there any of my name among them?" and he looked with eager attention for her answer.
"None that I know of," replied Mrs. Meridith; "the old farmer and his wife are both dead; and their eldest son is married, and has a large family."
"But are they all his own children?" repeated the man with great earnestness; "has he not one of mine?" His distress was so great that Mrs. Meridith, forgetting the caution she had given Anna, could not help endeavouring to relieve it by replying—
"No, but I have;—that is her."
It was now Anna's turn to support her father, for he sunk back motionless in the chair, only uttering, "It is impossible!"
She flew towards him, and bathed his face with her tears while she hung over him with inexpressible pleasure and emotion. When a little revived, he exclaimed, "and have you been a mother to her, when, through my inhumanity, she had lost her own? Oh, what a merciful Providence has watched over my child! when I, wretch that I was, was totally unmindful of her!" In this way he kept soliloquizing, while he looked first at one and then the other, and then repeated his thanks to the Almighty.
"But can my child forgive me?" continued he, very impassionately.