"The same! the same! these are my wife's initials on it. This is indeed a wonderful dispensation of Providence, to find a daughter after having so long mourned her as lost; and to find her all my heart could have wished, more than my most ambitious prayers could have asked! Oh, this is too much happiness! Alas!" he continued in a tone of deep feeling, while he drew the astonished and stupefied girl towards him, and, parting the dark locks on her brow, imprinted a paternal kiss upon her forehead, "Would that my poor Dolores had lived to see this hour! how would it have repaid the years of sorrow and mourning your loss occasioned her?"
"But how! what is this; it is most extraordinary?" exclaimed the Conde, who had waited in speechless surprise the dénoûment of this unexpected scene.
The General explained. His wife had been a Spanish lady of high birth. Returning to France from a visit to her relations, they had stopped to change horses at a little posada on the banks of the Guadiana; their little daughter, a child of eight months old, had sprung out of its nurse's arms into the river. Every effort to recover the child was fruitless; it sank and disappeared. They returned to France, and, after a few years, his wife died. "You may judge, then, of my feelings on hearing your story, Señor Conde," concluded the General; "the name of the river and the date first roused my suspicions, which the result has so fully confirmed."
"My child, my child! and must I then lose thee!" cried the Count, clasping the young girl in his arms in an agony of grief.
"Never!" passionately exclaimed Inez. "Tuya à la vida a la muerta!"
"Not so, Señor Conde; the man who has treated her so nobly has the best right to her," said the General. "I will never take her from you; an occasional visit is all I shall ask."
"But if you will not take her, I know who would, most willingly," said Ernest, stepping forward. "But first, my little sister, let me congratulate you upon dropping from the clouds upon such a good-natured, good-for-nothing, excellent fellow of a brother, as myself. And now, gentlemen, I have a boon to ask—where there is so much joy, why not make all happy at once? There is an unfortunate friend of mine who, to my certain knowledge, has been all but expiring for that fair damsel these last five months; and if for once our sweet Inez would dismiss all feminine disguise, and confess the truth, I suspect she would plead guilty to the same sin. Come, come, I will spare you," he added, as the rich blood mantled over Doña Inez's cheek—"that tell-tale blush is a sufficient answer. Then, why not make them happy?" he added, more seriously; "the Marquis de La Tour d'Auvergne, the heir of an ancient line, and a noble fortune, is in every respect a suitable alliance for either the Conde de Miranda, or General De Lucenay. Besides which, he is a very presentable young fellow, as you see, not to speak of the trifle of their being overhead and ears in love with each other already."
"What say you, my child?—Bah! is it indeed so?" exclaimed the Conde, as Inez stood motionless, her dark eyes fixed on the ground, and the flush growing deeper and deeper on her cheek every minute—while Alphonse, springing forward, declared that he would not think such happiness too dearly purchased with his life.
"No, no—no dying, if you please. A ghostly mate would be no very pleasant bridegroom for a young lady. What say you, General? shall we consent?"
"With all my heart."