Springing lightly up the stairs, she entered the room and stood beside her father's armchair.
He saw her beaming look, and said:
"What is it, Constance? What has brought this great joy to you? You look so happy."
"Father, we have all been under a great mistake. Ernest has never been married. That was his adopted daughter. He is waiting to see you; may I bring him up?"
"Yes, yes. Thank God! my prayers are answered."
In a few moments she stands before him, with her hand clasped in Ernest's.
"Here I am again, Mr. Lyle, as in years gone by, pleading for your blessing on our love. May I have her now, after all these years of waiting?"
"Ernest Moreton, I am profoundly thankful to Heaven for sparing me to see this day. Welcome back to your home and old friends, and welcome to the hand of my daughter. Take her; she has been a loving, patient, dutiful child. She has brightened and cheered my path for a long, weary time, and now I resign this blessing to you, and beg your forgiveness for these long years, lost to both, which might have been passed happily together."
"Not resign, but only share with me, this blessing; she shall never leave you, sir," replied Ernest.
"Father, do not speak of years lost; they have not been. Ernest would not have gone away, and devoted himself to study, if we had been united then; just think then what his adopted State would have lost! and I have been cheering you—think what you would have lost without your little Constance! Nay, there is nothing lost; all is gain, and simply by keeping God's command, 'Honor thy father and thy mother.'"