“Yes, I yield her to your arms,” continued Mr. Oakly, “the loveliest daughter that ever blessed a mother, and relieve you forever from the charge of an unfortunate, to whom my conduct has been both brutal and unnatural. Listen to me, madam, for a few moments.”
He then as briefly as possible made confession of the base part he had acted toward his brother, and the means employed to ruin him with his father; the selfish motives which led to the exchange of the children; related the incident of the picture, and consequent removal from Oak Villa—for well did he divine who the deformed was. He then spoke of Louisa; of her uniform loveliness of character, and the gentleness with which she had borne, as he acknowledged, his oft repeated unkindness.
“She knows all,” said he in conclusion, “and waits even now to receive a mother’s embrace. I will send her to you, and may her tears and caresses plead my forgiveness!” So saying, Mr. Oakly quickly withdrew.
A moment—an age to Mrs. Sullivan—the door gently unclosed and mother and child were folded in each other’s arms!
There are feelings which no language can convey—and which to attempt to paint would seem almost a sacrilege!
In a short time Mr. Oakly re-entered, accompanied by his wife. The meeting between the mothers was painful—for each felt there was still another trial for them! Mrs. Oakly now really loved Louisa, and that Mrs. Sullivan was most fondly attached to poor Agatha the reader already knows.
“O she has been a solace and a comfort to me!” said she to Mrs. Oakly. “A more noble-minded—a more unselfish, pure being never lived than our dear Agatha! believe me, to part from her will cause a pang nearly as great as when I first gave my darling Louisa to your arms!”
Another hour was spent in free communion, and then tenderly embracing her new found daughter, the happy mother returned home—the events of the morning seeming almost too blissful to be real!
It was sometime ere she could command herself sufficiently to the task before her. At length summoning all her resolution she made known to her astonished husband and Ruth the strange secret she had so long buried in her breast.
Mr. Sullivan undertook to break the intelligence to Agatha.