"How were you saved? Answer me that! How were you saved?" again screamed the excited woman.
"Well, I don't recollect much about it myself; but Mrs. Gower told me, the other day, that she found me rolled up in a shawl, on the beach, like an Esquimaux papoose asleep in a snow-bank. I haven't any notion who the 'he' is you speak of; but if 'he' left me there to turn into an icicle, I only wish I could see him, and tell him a piece of my mind—that's all."
"And this was Christmas eve, nineteen years ago?" exclaimed Madge Oranmore, breathlessly.
"Yes."
"Great Heaven! how just is thy retribution! And at last, in my dying hour, I behold before me the child of Esther Erliston and Alfred Oranmore!" exclaimed the dying woman, falling back on her pillow, and clasping her hands.
"What!" exclaimed Gipsy, springing forward, and seizing her by the arm. "Whose child, did you say I was?"
"The only daughter of Esther Erliston and Alfred Oranmore; and heiress, in your mother's right, of Mount Sunset Hall," replied Mrs. Oranmore.
"And grandchild of Squire Erliston?"
"Yes."
Gipsy staggered back, and covered her face with her hands. Her emotion was but momentary, however; and again approaching the bed, she said, in a tone that was perfectly calm, though her wild, excited eyes spoke a different tale: