“Of Roland Bayard’s likeness to you!”
“To me, my dear?”
“Yes, to you! But for the difference in age and in health, he is as much like you as one man can be to another!”
“Indeed!”
“Yes, indeed!”
“An imaginary or an accidental likeness, my child. But, Rosemary, to return to yourself. Do your parents, or guardians, know anything of your relations with this questionable stranger?”
“He is not a questionable stranger. He was brought up among us at home. Did I not tell you he used to ride me on his shoulder when he was a boy and I was a baby?”
“Then, if he is not a stranger, you must know all about him, and whether he is of high or low degree.”
“We do know all about him, but nothing at all about his family. He was saved from a ship that was wrecked on our coast, and he was the only one saved, and there was not a mark on him or his clothing to identify him. Mr. Force undertook to provide for him, and placed him with Miss Sybilla Margaretta Bayard, who was herself descended from a great English duke, though no one would ever think so to look at her! Mr. Force also sent Roland to school and afterward to college, and he would have sent him to the Naval Academy, at Annapolis, only he had already used all his influence to get Leonidas entered there, and he could not ask the same favor for Roland. So Roland, being bent upon going to sea, entered the merchant service.”
“Ah! I see. But, my child, it seems to me that you have not yet answered the question that I have twice put to you: Do your parents, or guardians, know of the engagement between you and this young man?”