"Are you sure," he cried out, "that I am her boy? are you sure I'm the right one?"
"Oh, yes!" said the lawyer, assuringly, "oh, yes! there's no mistake about that, there isn't the shadow of a doubt about that. We shall establish your identity beyond question; but we shall have to do it in the courts. When it is once done no one can prevent you from taking the name and the property to which you are entitled and using them as you see fit."
"But my mother!" said Ralph, anxiously, "my mother; she's all I care about; I don't want the property if I can't have her."
"And you shall have her, my boy. Mrs. Burnham said to me this morning, that, until your claim was duly proved in a court of law, she would have no legal right to accept you as her son; but that, when your identity is once established in that way, she will receive you into her home and her heart with much joy."
Ralph looked up with brightening eyes.
"Did she say that?" he exclaimed, "an' will she do it?"
"I have no doubt of it, none whatever."
"Then let's get at it right away," said the boy, impatiently, "it won't take very long, will it?"
"Oh! some little time; several months, may be; may be longer."
Ralph's face fell again.