"I am not little Amey any more, Mr. Dalton," I answered, with my hands still in his, and my eyes turned up to his good, honest face. "I have grown into a great woman since I saw you last; I have learned many things—sorrowful things; they have told me the story of my mother's life, and it has changed the whole nature of my own."
"They have told you?—did they tell you all?" he asked in a low, tremulous voice.
"Yes, everything," I answered warmly; "Mrs. Nyle has given me every detail."
He looked at me steadily for a moment in silence, and the tears gathered in his blue eyes—but they did not fall. When they had gone back again he drew the footstool nearer, and began to stroke my hair with one gentle hand.
"Amey," he said, "I have been waiting for this day through many a long and lonely year. I might have hastened it, I suppose, but I could not—however, perhaps it is time enough now. You know, now," he continued, taking my hands in his again and holding them firmly together, "why I have watched you, and followed your progress through childhood and girlhood, into your blooming womanhood. You know why I shared your little joys and sorrows in your youth; why I persuaded your father to send you to Notre Dame, when I saw how miserable your life was at home. During your absence I managed to find out the only surviving relative I knew you had. I feared a day might come when you would find yourself in need of such a friend, and indeed such came to pass. When you returned from school I met you in the Hartmanns' ball room; I had come in late on the evening train, and found an invitation among my letters; I knew you had come home, and expected to find you there, so I hastened thither, and saw you, as you know, first when you were dancing, and next in the conservatory. I shall never forget how you looked that night, Amey; it was as if time had rolled its iron portals back, and that forth from the buried past came the dearest and holiest associations of my life. I saw in you, as plainly as if the 'loved and lost' one her self had stood before me, the image proud and beautiful, of my first and only love."
"My mother?" I faltered.
"Your mother," he repeated.
"I remember now," I said, with slow, sad emphasis, "that papa looked strangely at me that night too, and did what he had not done for years before, he kissed me kindly and tenderly, and muttered something about my being the 'image of his happy past,' and of his never having seen 'such a likeness before.'"
"It is little wonder, child," Mr. Dalton answered, looking wistfully into the space between us. "He loved her, too, poor Hampden—every one did—but I loved her first, and best—yes, I know I loved her best. How I watched your every look and tone and gesture at this time, Amey," he exclaimed eagerly, "they were constantly bringing back my vanished youth, and casting fitful gleams of sunshine across my wintry track. And you took to me. I could see the reflection of the old love-light, faint though it was, in the eyes that were only like hers, and not really hers—yes it was a living pledge of her early love each time you watched for me, and welcomed me, or singled me out in a crowded room from all the rest. It was her inheritance, that she left you, wherewith to gladden the life that Fate had urged her to darken,—and you did it, my little one, though it could never be quite the same."
"I loved you, and watched you jealously, God knows I did, but it was not with that other dead love, which shall never be revived on earth. In the sight of heaven we belonged to one another, a pledge is a pledge, in spite of all the subterfuges and impediments of destiny, and we were pledged to one another. Therefore do I weep my widowed love, as if men had called her mine, as well as heaven."