Dora Deane; Or, The East India Uncle

by Mary Jane Holmes

Like one in a dream, Uncle Nat walked from room to room, asking every half hour if it were not almost time for the train, and wondering if Dora would recognize him if no one told her who he was. Scarcely less excited, Mr. Hastings, too, waited and watched; and when, just at dark, he heard the door unclose, and Dora's voice in the hall without, the rapid beating of his heart was distinctly audible.

"That's her—that's Dora. I'll go to her at once," said Uncle Nat; but Mr. Hastings kept him back, and Dora passed on to her room, from which she soon returned, and they could hear the sound of her footsteps upon the stairs, as she drew near.

With his face of a deathlike whiteness, his lips apart, and the perspiration standing thickly about them, Uncle Nat sat leaning forward, his eyes fixed upon the door through which she would enter. In a moment she stood before them—Dora Deane—but far more lovely than Mr. Hastings had thought or dreamed. Nearly two years before, he had left her a school girl, as it were, and now he found her a beautiful woman, bearing about her an unmistakable air of refinement and high breeding. She knew him in an instant, and with an exclamation of surprised delight, was hastening forward, when a low, moaning cry, from another part of the room, arrested her ear, causing her to pause ere Mr. Hastings was reached. Uncle Nat had recognized her—knew that she was Dora and attempted to rise, but his strength utterly failed him and stretching out his trembling arms towards her, he said supplicatingly,"Me first, Dora me first."

It was sufficient, and Dora passed on with a welcoming glance at Mr. Hastings, who feeling that it was not for him to witness that meeting, glided noiselessly from the room in quest of his sister. Fondly the old man clasped the young girl to his bosom, and Dora could hear the whispered blessings which he breathed over her, and felt the hot tears dropping on her cheek.

"Speak to me, darling," he said at last; "let me hear your own voice assuring me that never again shall we be parted until your mother calls for me to come and be with her."

Looking lovingly up in to his face, Dora answered, "I will never leave nor forsake you, my father, but whereever your home may be there will mine be also."

Clasping her still closer in his arms, he said, "God bless you, my child, for so I will call you, and never, I am sure, did earthly parent love more fondly an only daughter than I love you, my precious Dora. I have yearned so often to behold you, to look into your eyes and hear you say that I was loved, and now that it has come to me, I am willing, almost, to die."

Releasing her after a moment, and holding her off at a little distance, he looked earnestly upon her, saying, as he did so, "Yes, you are like her—like your mother, Dora. Some, perhaps, would call you even more beautiful, but to me there is not in all the world a face more fair than hers."

In his delight at seeing her, he forgot for the time being how deeply she had been injured, and it was well that he did, for now nothing marred the happiness of this meeting, and for half an hour longer he sat with her alone, talking but little, but looking ever at the face so much like her whom he had loved and lost. At last, as if suddenly remembering himself, he said, "Excuse me, Dora; the sight of you drove every other thought from my mind, and I have kept you too long from one who loves you equally well with myself, and who must be impatient at the delay. He is worthy of you, too, my child," he continued, without observing how the color faded from Dora's cheek. "He is a noble young man, and no son was ever kinder to a father than he has been to me, since the night when I welcomed him to my home in India. Go to him, then, my daughter, and ask him to forgive my selfishness."

From several little occurrences, Dora had received the impression that a marriage between herself and Mr. Hastings would not be distasteful to his sister, but she had treated the subject lightly as something impossible. Still the thought of his loving another was fraught with pain, and when at last she knew that he was on the stormy sea, and felt that danger might befall him—when the faces of his mother and sister wore an anxious, troubled look as days went by, bringing them no tidings—when she thought it just possible that he would never return to them again, it came to her just as two years before it had come to him, and sitting alone in her pleasant chamber, she, more than once had wept bitterly, as she thought how much she loved him, and how improbable it was that he should care for her, whom he had found almost a beggar girl.