“Yonder!” cried the gipsy, with a sort of fierce, passionate cry, pointing one shaking finger toward the terrified Erminie; “there she stands; Erminie Seyton, the heiress of the Earl and Countess De Courcy. The daughter of an earl has toiled like a menial for your mother, Reginald, all her life. There she stands the lost daughter and heiress of Lord De Courcy!”
An awful silence fell for a moment on all, broken first by the impetuous Ranty Lawless.
“Lord and Lady De Courcy! why, they are here in America—in Baltimore, now. Good heavens! can our Erminie be anything to them? Oh, I knew she was; I saw the likeness the very first moment we met.”
“Who says Lord and Lady De Courcy are here?” cried the smuggler, half-rising himself in his excitement.
“I do!” said Ranty, stepping forward; “they came out in our ship, and I was with them as far as Washington city. Last night, I learned that they had arrived at Baltimore, where a friend of Lady De Courcy’s, an Englishman, is residing.”
All he had heard, all that had passed before, nothing had affected him like that. His chest rose and fell with his long, hard, labored breathing and his face, white before, was livid now as that of the dead.
“So near! so near! Can it be that I will see her once more? And her child here, too, where is she? I must see her!”
Ray, who had listened like one transfixed to his grandmother’s revelations, made a motion to Erminie to approach. Unable to comprehend or realize what she heard, she came over and sunk down on her knees beside him.
He took her hand in his, and pushed back the pale golden hair off her brow, and gazed long and earnestly in her pale but wondrous lovely young face.
“Her father’s eyes and hair, and features; her mother’s form and expression; the noble brow and regal bearing of her father’s race spiritualized and softened. Yes, a true De Courcy, and yet like her mother, too. Ray come here.”