CHAPTER XXVII.
DELIA, OR DOROTHY?
As Donald listened to his uncle by the study-window, on that starlit evening, many things that he had heard from Sailor Jack rose in his memory and blended with Mr. Reed's words. Part of the strange story was already familiar to him. He needed only a hint of the shipwreck to have the scene vividly before him. He and Dorry had often heard of it, and of their first coming to Nestletown. They knew that Uncle George had easily established his claim to the babies, as these and the one that was lost were the only infants among the passengers, and that he had brought them and Sailor Jack home with him from New York; that Jack, through his devotion to the children, had been induced to give up the sea and remain with Mr. Reed ever since; and that they, the twins, had grown up together the happiest brother and sister in that part of the country, until "the long, lank man" had come to mar their happiness, and Uncle had been mysteriously bothered, and had seemed sometimes to be unreasonably annoyed at Dorothy's innocent peculiarities of manner and temperament. But now Donald learned of the doubts that from the first had perplexed Mr. Reed; of the repeated efforts that he had made to ascertain which one of the three babies had been lost; how he had been baffled again and again, until at last he had given himself up to a dull hope that the little girl who had become so dear was really his brother's child, and joint heir with Donald to his and his brother's estates; and how Eben Slade actually had come to claim her and take her away, threatening to blight the poor child by proving that she was his niece, Delia Robertson, and not Dorothy Reed at all.
Poor Donald! Dorry had been so surely his sister that until now he had taken his joy in her as a matter of course,—as a part of his existence, bright and necessary as light and air, and never questioned. She was Dorry, he even now felt confident, not Delia—Delia, the poor little cousin who was lost; certainly not. She was Dorry and he was Donald. If she was not Dorry, then who was he? Who was Uncle George? Who were all the persons they knew, and what did everything in life mean?
No, he would not give her up—he could not. Something within him resented the idea, then scouted it, and finally set him up standing before his uncle, so straight, so proud in his bearing, so joyfully scornful of anything that threatened to take his sister away from him, that Mr. George rose also and waited for him to speak, as though Donald's one word must settle the question for ever.
"Well, my boy?"
"Uncle, I am absolutely sure of it. Our Dorry is Dorothy Reed—here with us alive and well, and I mean to prove it!"
"God grant it, Donald!"
"Well, Uncle, I must go now to bring my sister home. Of course, I shall not tell her a word of what has passed between us this evening. That scoundrel! to think of his intending to tell her that she was his sister's child! Poor Dot! think of the shock to her. Just suppose he had convinced her, made her think that it was true, that it was her duty to go with him, care for him, and all that—Why, Uncle, with her spirit and high notions of right, even you and I couldn't have stopped her; she'd have gone with him, if it killed her!"