“Oh, my lord! have you, too, observed it?” cried Lady Maude, breathlessly. “It was the first thing that struck me, too. How very singular!”
“I suppose she resembles some one we have both known. There is no accounting for the strange likenesses we see sometimes in total strangers. Well, what do you intend to do with this little bird of paradise you have caught?”
“Let her remain here in charge of the housekeeper. I cannot account for the strange interest I feel in this little one, Ernest.”
“I should like to see the child you do not feel an interest in, Maude,” he said, smiling. “But are there no means of finding out to whom she belongs? Her parents may be living, and lamenting her loss, even now, dear wife.”
A sudden shadow fell on them both at his words and the recollection they recalled. Earl De Courcy’s eyes softened with a tender light as he gazed on the child’s, and Lady Maude’s were full of tears as she stooped down and kissed the small, red mouth.
“There are no means of discovering them, Ernest,” she said, half sadly. “The gipsies are gone; but Martha found a little silver cross round her neck, on which were engraven the letters ‘M. J. L.’ I have laid it carefully aside, though I fear her parentage may never be discovered.”
“Well do as you like with her, dear Maude. The child is certainly very beautiful. I believe you love all children for our lost treasure’s sake.”
“Oh, I do—I do! my sweet, precious Erminie! Oh, my lord! if this little one had blue eyes and fair hair like her, I could find it in my heart to adopt her, for our darling’s sake.”
“You would not let such a trifle as that prevent you, Maude, if you really wished it. But let the child remain. Rita—that’s her name, isn’t it?—come here, Rita.”
He held out his arms. Rita looked at him from under her long eyelashes, and then going over, nestled within them just as Erminie used to do.