“ ‘Just like a woman, God bless her!’ I murmured involuntarily. The old man bent his head in cordial assent, but immediately resumed: ‘Her father blessed her before she died, and promised to care for the little girl. He then drew up this will’—here he laid his hand on a thick packet on the desk—‘and entrusted it me. The child was nine years old then, and that was fifteen years ago. She was to be told nothing till her twenty-first birthday, and to be brought up in England, unconscious of anything save that she was the child of honest parents. This went on for some years, and then my old friend died. I continued to send regular remittances to the little girl's temporary guardians; the bulk of the fortune I kept in the house—there in that chest; perhaps it was a foolish fancy, but I did not care to have it in a common bank. The war came and passed over the flower of our land, and you see, monsieur, what it has left of my former self. Well, after a time, five or six years ago, I ceased hearing from my little ward; I was unable to get up and search for her; all that advertisements and correspondence could do I did, and my chief endeavor was to find you. I thought, if anything were likely, this was; she would go to you, her father's step-brother, a different man, as I always heard her mother say, from what her own unhappy parent had been.’
“ ‘But,’ I said, ‘allow me to correct a mistake, monsieur; I never had a step-brother, or a brother either.’
“ ‘What!’ the old man exclaimed nervously—‘what do you mean? Do not joke about such things. Your name is ——. Your hair is fair and wavy, your figure tall and stalwart—that was the portrait of my poor little ward's uncle, a different man, of different [pg 456] blood, as well as different name, from her father.’
“ ‘Do not tell me any names, monsieur,’ I here insisted, ‘until I have told you who I am.’
“He looked at me, still agitated, his brows knitted, and his lips quivered. I told him my name, birth, country, profession, and assured him that I, an only son, had never heard of any story like his. He seemed thunderstruck, and could hardly take in the idea; but, recollecting himself, said: ‘Pardon me, monsieur, but I have, then, caused you great inconvenience.’
“His politeness now seemed overwhelming; he was in despair; he was désolé. What could he do? How could he apologize? I quieted him as best I could by professing the utmost indifference about the delay, and begged him, though I would solicit no further confidence, to consider my lips as sealed, and, if he wished it, my services as entirely at his disposal.
“He smiled curiously, then said: ‘The best apology I can make is to tell you the whole. Your name and initials misled me. Having heard that you were in Bruges, I sent my messenger, who, it seems, only reached you as you were on the point of starting for Ostend. I thought it was my ward's uncle I had found, and, never having seen him, I could not tell if you were the wrong man. I must continue to try and find him; if I fail—never mind, I want to tell you her name. She is Philippa Duncombe, and, when I saw her last, she was a dark child, quick, peculiar, and resolute. It is so long ago that I could give you no idea of her exterior as she is now. I think she must have suspected her dependence upon a supposed charity, and have left school without the knowledge of any one. Anyhow, I must still try to find your namesake; as for you, monsieur, I cannot thank you enough for your forbearance.’
“I left Bruges the next day, but, as you may suppose, the story of the Baron Van Muyden never ceased to haunt me, and a few months after I was glad and flattered to receive a letter from the old veteran saying that he had now ascertained that my namesake, the child's half-uncle, had been dead some years, and that he felt that to none other but myself would he now wish to transfer the task of searching for the lost heiress. Of course I accepted.”
Our friend paused here, and looked thoughtfully at the fire. The Yule-logs were burning so merrily that a ruin seemed imminent, and while the silence was yet unbroken a sound of distant singing came towards the house. It was the gay company of Christmas carollers, singing their old, old ditties through the frosty night, in commemoration of the Angel-songs heard by the watching shepherds so many long centuries ago on the hills of Judæa. But the company was too much absorbed in the traveller's tale to heed the faint echo. Miss Houghton sat with her dark eyes fixed on the speaker, and every vestige of color gone in the intensity of her excitement; Mrs. Burtleigh, tapping the fender with her tiny gray satin slipper, seemed strangely excited, and glanced uneasily at her cousin; the rest of us were clasping our hands in our unrestrainable curiosity, and the provoking narrator actually had the coolness to hold his peace!
At last some one spoke, unable to control his goaded curiosity.