“I heard the voice of my Alice, did I not?” said he, faintly.
Opening his eyes, he beheld Jessy standing by his side. “The Lord’s blessing be upon thee, Alice,” he murmured, endeavoring to stretch out his withered and feeble hand toward her. “I knew thou hadst not utterly forsaken us. See, William, she has returned; the Lord is still merciful to us. Mine eyes have beheld her once more, and I have now no other wish than to close them again and die.”
Jessy, supposing his words caused by the delirium of illness, gently took the faded hand he tried to offer, and he continued. “Years have passed over thee, my daughter. Thou lookest scarce older or less fair than when thou wert wont to trip about thy father’s halls, ere trouble visited us. Time has not dealt so lightly with thy husband and myself. See how thine absence has wasted me until I am dying to-day. Alice, thou must have been happier than we have been during thy separation.”
Surprised at these words, Jessy turned toward the other stranger.
“He mistakes me for another,” said she.
“Well might I too believe that thou art she,” replied the person addressed, regarding her fixedly in an absent manner, and speaking as if to himself. “Maiden,” said he, suddenly, shaking off for a moment his waking dream, and advancing a step nearer to her, “by what name do they call thee?”
“I am known as Jessy Ellet, sir,” she replied, modestly. “Whom do I so much resemble?”
The person spoken to did not apparently hear the query. His whole senses seemed absorbed in the one sense of sight; and he continued to gaze upon her until, in spite of all his efforts at self-control, he seemed almost completely overcome by some feelings of extraordinary emotion.
Jessy looked in surprise at his working features for a moment, and she felt her nature melt in a flow of generous sympathy toward him, as she tremulously and apprehensively repeated her question.
“Whom dost thou resemble?” he said at length. “Thine own mother, my daughter—my wife and the child of that dying man. Behold your father and grandfather in the unhappy beings before you. Come, my child, to this long-forsaken bosom.” And he stretched out his arms to receive her.