"You are mistaken, Maud--I remember both your parents well--it could not be otherwise, as they were the bosom friends of my own. You will remember that I am now eight-and-twenty, and that I had seen seven of these years when you were born. Was my first effort in arms never spoken of in your presence?"
"Never--perhaps it was not a subject for me to hear, if it were in any manner connected with my parents."
"You are right--that must be the reason it has been kept from your ears."
"Surely, surely, I am old enough to hear it now--you will conceal nothing from me, Bob?"
"If I would, I could not, now. It is too late, Maud. You know the manner in which Major Meredith died?--"
"He fell in battle, I have suspected," answered the daughter, in a suppressed, doubtful tone--"for no one has ever directly told me even that."
"He did, and I was at his side. The French and savages made an assault on us, about an hour earlier than this, and our two fathers rushed to the pickets to repel it--I was a reckless boy, anxious even at that tender age to see a fray, and was at their side. Your father was one of the first that fell; but Joyce and our father beat the Indians back from his body, and saved it from mutilation. Your mother was buried in the same grave, and then you came to us, where our have been ever since."
Maud's tears flowed fast, and yet it was not so much in grief as in a gush of tenderness she could hardly explain to herself. Robert Willoughby understood her emotions, and perceived that he might proceed.
"I was old enough to remember both your parents well--I was a favourite, I believe, with, certainly was much petted by, both--I remember your birth, Maud, and was suffered to carry you in my arms, ere you were a week old."
"Then you have known me for an impostor from the beginning, Bob--must have often thought of me as such!"