“Annella Wilder—Oh-h! don’t squeeze my arm so tightly; you’ll break the bone!” said the girl, shrinking from such a very pressing proof of regard.
“Annella Wilder! Annella was the pet name we used to call my darling by, being the short for Anna Eleanora; and Wilder was the name of the young fellow as bolted with her. And you as like her as one pea-pod is to another, and as sure as fate you are my poor darling’s child. You are! you are! Oh, dear! Oh, dear! oh!” cried the housekeeper, catching the girl to her bosom, and sobbing and weeping over her.
“And so my darling is dead! Died when you were an infant you say! And her young husband, your father, did he ever forget her who gave up so much for his sake? Did he ever put another woman in her place?” cried the affectionate creature, still holding the girl to her bosom.
“Never; he devoted himself to her memory—he mourned her as long as he lived.”
“Then how was it, my child, that you were left so destitute?”
“Oh, my father, was unfortunate—he was obliged to sell out—and—he became more and more unfortunate until he died—in destitution—and—do not ask me any more,” said Annella, hesitatingly and bursting into tears.
“I understand; I understand; that word ‘unfortunate’ means a great deal, whether it is applied to man or woman. But there! don’t cry any more, my dear. Better fortune is in store for you, I hope; for surely the admiral will never visit the offences of the parents upon the child. There, don’t cry any more, you are all right now, you are here,” said the woman, wiping the tears from Annella’s eyes and re-seating her in her chair.
“But tell me who you are who take so kind an interest in my mother and myself, and what place this is where I feel so much at home?” said Annella.
“Who am I, and what place is this? Why, my dear, is it possible that you do not know where you are?”
“No more than the dead.”