The cautious prudence with which Dr. Carollyn meant to approach the avowal was swept away by a sudden torrent of emotion—tears blinded him, his lips quivered, he endeavored in vain to speak, to compose himself—until finally he caught the surprised girl to his breast, held her closely, exclaiming:
"Oh, my lost Annie! you are her child, yes, you are her child and mine. You are indeed my own flesh and blood—I am your father, my darling!"
"Wal, if that don't beat all," was Mrs. Wright's comment amid the silence of the rest of the group. "I always told you, husband, this very thing would turn up some time."
"How do I know he's speakin' truth?" growled Timothy.
"Did you know Elizabeth's mother?" asked Mr. Carollyn.
"I reckon we did, when she lived with us full four years—she was with us before this child was born, and stayed with us till she went to a better place—to the heaven where she belonged," and the woman put her apron up to her eyes.
"I will show you the likeness of my wife," said Dr. Carollyn, putting Elizabeth gently aside, and drawing a miniature case from an inner vest-pocket over his heart.
Wright and his wife sprung forward to look at it.
"It's her!" they both cried, lingering as if they could not look enough—another was also hanging tranced above it, the maiden gazing at the picture of her mother, whose girlish face was scarcely older than her own—gazing, breathless and tearless, upon the delicate, lovely vision whose blue eyes looked out of ripples of golden hair like an angel's out of a cloud.
"It is my mother," she said, "I have never forgotten her."