Bending low his head, he seemed to be thinking of the past, while Mr. Hastings, kissing fondly the picture of Dora Deane, laid it softly upon the table, and then anxiously awaited the result. Uncle Nathaniel did not see it at first, but his eye ere long fell upon it, and, with a cry like that which broke from his lips when first he looked on his dead Fannie's hair, he caught it up, exclaiming, "'Tis her—'tis Fannie—my long-lost darling, come back to me from the other world. Oh, Fannie, Fannie!" he cried, as if his reason were indeed unsettled, "I've been so lonesome here without you. Why didn't you come before?"
Again, for a time, he was silent, and Mr. Hastings could see the tears dropping upon the face of Dora Deane, who little dreamed of the part she was acting, far off in Hindostan. Slowly the reality dawned upon Uncle Nat, and speaking to Mr. Hastings, he said, "Who are you that moves me thus from one extreme to another, making me first a fury and then a child?"
"I have told you I am Howard Hastings," answered the young man, adding that the picture was not that of Fannie, but her child.
"I know—I know it," returned Uncle Nat, "but the first sight of it drove me from my senses, it is so like her. The same open brow, the same blue eyes, the same ripe lips, and more than all, the same sweet smile which shone on me so often 'mid the granite hills of New Hampshire. And it is mine," he continued, making a movement to put it away. "You brought it to me, and in return, if you have need for gold, name the sum, and it shall be yours, even to half a million."
Money could not buy that picture from Howard Hastings, and though it grieved him to do so, he said, very gently, "I cannot part with the likeness, Mr. Deane, but we will share it together until the original is gained."
Leaning upon his elbows and looking steadily at his visitor, Uncle
Nathaniel said, "You have been married once?"
"Yes, sir," answered Mr. Hastings, while his countenance flushed, for he readily understood the nature of the questioning to which he was to be subjected.
"What was the name of your wife?" was the next query, and Mr. Hastings replied, "Ella Grey."
"Will you describe her?" said Uncle Nat, and almost as vividly as the features of Dora Deane were delineated by the artist's power, did Mr. Hastings portray by word the laughing blue eyes, the pale, childish face, the golden curls, and little airy form of her who had once slept upon his bosom as his wife.
"And did you love her, this Ella Grey?" asked Uncle Nat.