Softly opening the door, she put her flushed, beautiful face within, saying, with charming eagerness:
“Mamma says that—that my father is here.”
Sir William turned at the sound of that sweet voice, his whole soul in his face, and held out his arms to her.
“Virgie! my child!” he cried, in a tone that thrilled her, and her heart instantly owned its kindred, without a doubt of fear.
She sprang to his breast, laughing and sobbing all at once, and his kisses were rained upon her upturned face.
“Oh, my baby, whom I never saw! my darling for whom my heart has yearned so many years! God is good to give both my treasures to me, so fair and loving,” he murmured, fondly, while his own tears mingled with hers, and his chest heaved with the emotion he could not control.
“Papa!” Virgie breathed, with a tender inflection that touched him deeply; “to think that I have never been able to say it before, while I have hardly dared to speak of you at all, because of the suffering it caused mamma.”
“How has she accounted for my absence, love?”
“She has always told me that you went over the sea and were lost. Only since coming to London have I learned that you were living.”
“It was better so,” the baronet murmured, with a sigh. “It was better to have you think me dead, than guilty of the unfaithfulness which she was led to believe of me. But, my darling,” he added, holding her off and gazing tenderly into her fair, young face, “you are very like what your mother was when I first saw her, and it is no wonder I was so attracted toward you the other night at Lady Dunforth’s.”