She seized it with eager, trembling fingers, opened it, and gazed with tender, tearful eyes upon the faces within. Then turning to her husband, she wailed:
“But, Alfred, where is our boy? Oh! I have not seen him since I left him long years ago in Naples, though I begged and pleaded with my brother to take me to him.”
There was a look of pain upon Alfred Ellerton’s fine face as he raised his eyes and glanced around upon the group in front of them.
“Here! Oh! mother! mother!” suddenly exclaimed a choking voice; and Ralph suddenly rushed forward, threw himself at his mother’s feet, and hid his tearful face in her lap.
She raised his head and drew it to her bosom, put back the heavy black locks from his brow, and gazed earnestly into his flushed face. Then suddenly her mother’s heart spoke, and she cried, in tenderest accents:
“Oh, my boy! oh, my boy! can it be? Yes, it must be; my heart tells me that you are my child—my long-lost deserted boy!”
She rained kisses upon his brow, cheeks, and lips, while her own fast-dropping tears mingled with his.
Alfred Ellerton regarded them with looks at once fond and proud, stern and sorrowful, until at length he said: “Has my son no word for his father?”
Ralph rose to his feet at once, while the hot blood mounted to his brow.
He realized that his father knew what he was—that all his plots and evil deeds were known to him; and he stood sad and humble before him, his heart nearly bursting with shame and sorrow for what he had done—also with joy and gratitude that he had found a father and a mother, and that there was no longer a doubtful stain upon his name.