"So 'tis—so 'tis, stranger!" said Timothy, "but it's the best we can do for her—and we couldn't spare Lizzie. No! no!"
"You have others to provide for—I have no one. I am rich; I could give her all she wishes and ought to have."
"Wal, in the first place, stranger, if you're in earnest, you'd have to give purty satisfactory proofs of who and what you was, before you get our Lizzie. As for the rest, we love her too much to want to be selfish—and she can speak for herself."
"What do you say, Elizabeth? Will you be my daughter?"
She made no reply; she was looking at him with a startled, wistful gaze—something was stirring in her blood and brain which moved her mysteriously—her subtle sense was half conscious of the affinity between this stranger and herself.
"You never knew your father, Elizabeth?"
"Never."
"Or your mother?"—how his voice trembled.
"She has been dead many years—since I was three years old—but I remember her," and the tears rushed into voice and eyes.