"Ah, no, no!" cried the poor girl, starting up and clasping her hands; "still Arrah Neil to you, Charles--to all of you, still Arrah Neil!"
Lord Walton gazed on her with a look of earnest tenderness, and a faint smile crossed his fine lip. Perhaps he thought that, whatever was her name for the time, she would soon be Arabella Walton; but he would not agitate her more at that moment, and was about to proceed with the account he was rendering to Lady Margaret, when Lord Beverley advanced and extended his arms to Arrah Neil. She gazed upon him in surprise; but he pressed her to his bosom warmly, eagerly, and kissed her brow, exclaiming--
"Fear not, dear child! fear not! The same blood flows in your veins as in mine. I am not deceived, Lady Margaret--her father was my mother's brother. Is it not so?"
"It is," said Lady Margaret. "Ask me no questions yet, my child. He is your cousin, and he and his have forgiven me and mine. I trust that God has forgiven us, and you may have to do so, too, when you hear all. Say, will you do it, Arrah?"
The fair girl fell upon her neck and kissed her; and Annie Walton then claimed her share of tenderness, though to her the tale had been developed more gradually, and was not heightened by surprise.
It was a strange and touching scene, however, even to one who witnessed it, like the poor painter, without any personal interest in the recovery of the lost lamb; and Falgate's eyes were as full of tears as those of the rest, when he was called forward by Lord Walton to give an account of how he had found the packet which he had brought that day. His tale was somewhat confused, and the particulars need not be related here, as the reader is already acquainted with them; but when he spoke of the account given by the good hostess of the inn, and pointed out the facts she had written down--when he detailed his visit to the vault and the opening of the coffin--Lady Margaret Langley sobbed aloud, exclaiming--
"My child! oh, my child! Ah! didst thou die so near me, and no mother's hand to close thine eyes?"
When she had somewhat recovered, however, she took the tokens and the papers which had been found in the coffin, and gazed upon them, one after the other, with many a sad comment. There were two rings she recollected well. One she had given herself, and a small gold circlet for the brow. It was on her child's sixteenth birthday, she said, the last she ever spent within her father's halls. Then she read the certificate of marriage, and a short statement of events, in a hand that she knew too well, wiping the bitter drops from her eyes that she might see the words; and then she kissed the name written below, and, drawing Arrah to her heart, embraced her long. At length she looked round and asked--
"What is there wanting, Charles? All doubt is done away."
"To us it is, my dear aunt," answered Lord Walton; "but the law will require proof that this dear girl, so long called Arrah Neil, is the same as the child whom old Sergeant Neil brought from Hull to Bishop's Merton many years ago. Those proofs, I hope, will soon be found. Indeed, I expected that they would have been brought hither ere now. Some strange delay has taken place, but doubtless some mere accident has caused it; and at all events we are satisfied."