At length, one day during one of their expeditions, Arthur spoke to Mary on a subject about which he had kept silence all along. Replying to a remark she had made about his resemblance to the girl, he said, “Everything I resemble her in is inherited from my grandmother on my father's side.” Then he began to laugh.
“I don't quite see where the laugh comes in,” said Mary, who had pricked up her ears at the mention of his grandmother, for she had been waiting to hear him say something about his relations.
“No, but you would see it if you knew my aunt—my father's sister—and had heard what passed between us about Fan. She is a widow, and lives in Kensington with her two daughters—both pretty, clever girls, I think, though they are my cousins. Let me tell you about her. She is a dear good creature, and I am awfully fond of her; very religious too, but what the world thinks and says, and what it will say, is as much to her as what her Bible says, although it would shock her very much to hear me say so. When I made the discovery that Fan was my half-sister, I told aunt all about it. She was greatly troubled in her mind, and I suppose that her mental picture of the girl must have been rather a disagreeable one; but she asked no questions on the point, and I gave her no information. She said that it was right to provide for her, and so on, but that it would be a great mistake to make her take the family name, or to bring her forward in any way. After a few days she wrote to me asking what I had done or was going to do about it. I replied that Fan was my father's daughter, and as much to me as if we had been born of one mother as well, and that I had nothing more to say. Then I got letter after letter, reasoning with me about my quixotic ideas, and trying to convince me that my action would only result in spoiling the girl, and in creating a coldness between myself and relations. It was rather hard, because I am really fond of my aunt and my cousins. My only answer to all her letters was to give her an account of that dream or fancy of my father's; her reply was that that made no difference, that I would do the girl no good by dragging her among people she was not fitted to associate with.
“So the matter rested until my return to England, when I called to see her. She was still anxious, and at once asked me if I had come round to her view. I said no. At last, finding that I was not to be moved, she asked me to let her see the girl—she did not wish her daughters to see her. I declined, and that brought us to a deadlock. She informed me that there was nothing more to be said, but she couldn't help saying more, and asked me what I intended doing about it. Nothing, I answered; since she refused to countenance Fan, there was nothing I could do. Not quite satisfied, she asked whether this disagreement between us would make any difference. I said that it would make all the difference in the world. She was angry at that, but got over it by the time my visit came to an end, and she asked me very sweetly when I was going to see her again. I laughed, and said that after she had turned me, quixotic ideas and all, out of her house, I could not very well return. It distressed her very much; for she knows that I am not all softness, that I can sometimes stick to a resolution. Then at last came the question that should have come first: What was this poor girl of the lower orders about whom I had lost my reason like?
“Before finishing I must tell you something about that grandmother I have mentioned. She was a gentle, lovely woman, just such a one as Fan in character, and her memory is almost worshipped by my aunt. And Fan is exactly like what she was when a girl. I knew that my aunt possessed an exquisite miniature portrait of her taken before her marriage, which I had not seen for a long time. I asked her to let me look at it, and one of the girls went and fetched it. 'This,' I said, 'allowing for the different arrangement of the hair, might be a portrait of Fan; and in character, the resemblance is as great as in face. I believe that my grandmother's soul has come back to earth.'
“'Arthur, I can't believe you!' she exclaimed. 'It is wicked of you to compare this poor girl, the child of a person of the lower classes, to my mother—a most heavenly-minded woman!' I only laughed, and then they begged me to show them a photograph of Fan. I hadn't one to show, but I got back that picture you have heard about, and forwarded it to Kensington. Now my aunt and cousins are most anxious to see the girl, and are rather vexed with me because I am taking my time about it. Now you know, Mary, why I laughed.”
“My dear boy,” she said, putting her hand in his, “I thought well of you before, but better now; you have acted nobly.”
“Oh please don't say that. Besides—I think I am too old to be called a boy—especially by a girl.”
Mary laughed. “And you can tell me all this and keep it from Fan, when it would make her so unutterably happy!”
“She will know it all in good time. It will be a pleasant little surprise when she is back in London. I have sent my aunt to confer with Mr. Travers, and his account of Fan has quite excited her.”