"It was indeed a lovely picture," said Fred; "the old bowed head with the evening's breath moving the gray hair, and that delicate girl, with her white dress glistening in the moonbeams, and with the seraphic expression on her brow!"
CHAPTER XXII.
"Eleanor," said Mr. Halberg to his wife, after the young people had retired to rest, "there is something very singular about that girl. She is so like our departed Jane that she awakens my deepest interest. Did you notice her manners, at once so child-like and so mature? I must inquire more particularly about her of Mrs. Dunmore; it strikes me she is no common child."
"I paid no especial attention to her," replied the wife; "she is sufficiently long under the influence of a refined example to overcome all taint of birth and early habit, however."
"I tell you, wife," said the husband, "there's an innate pride and dignity about the girl that no training could effect. I watched her all the evening, and could detect nothing but the most perfect ease and grace. Her face, too, haunts me. Do you remember how pure and earnest the expression of Jane's eye was? Well, there's the same look in that young girl's, so that I longed to take her to my heart and call her sister. If we had not learned with such apparent certainty about the death of the child I should say this was she," soliloquized he, as his wife left the room for one moment, and resuming the subject as she returned. "Why, Eleanor, how long is it since my father lost his reason?"
"About four years, I believe," replied Mrs. Halberg.
"And our poor Jane had been twelve years away, and her little one was born three years after her marriage, and this child is—how old did you say, wife?"
"I'm sure I don't know, Frank; but what possesses you? Have you any idea that Jane's child is still living? and if it were so and we should ever find it out, are you not aware how materially it would affect our own children's share of their grandfather's property?" said Mrs. Halberg, blushing for very shame, as she encountered her husband's searching and grieved eye.
"Eleanor," said he, "my sister was bitterly wronged! God only knows how and what she suffered, not only from the neglect and desertion of her kindred; but from the stern pinchings of want. For my own part," continued he, leaning his head upon his hand, and sighing deeply, "I would be willing to forfeit all the inheritance if by that means I could make some reparation for the cruel past!"