"This is the sum and substance of all the information I could glean. The woman who made traffic of her offspring, would not tell the gipsies to what regiment her husband belonged, nor mention his name. I have, therefore, not the slightest clue by which to make further scrutiny, and the only knowledge which I have gained, deprives me of the humble consolation which I before enjoyed, of dreaming that I was once folded in the arms of an adoring parent, who, however lowly her lot of life, still loved and pressed me to a mother's bosom. The keenness of this disappointment, and the certainty that the moral qualities of her who gave me birth were as debased as her station, peculiarly unfitted me to bear with calmness the sentence which Mrs. Hartland pronounced to-day upon a vulgar origin.
"Oh, why are my feelings so acute? Sprung from the lowest abyss, the very dregs of my species, why are my thoughts so proud? Why is my will thus rebellious? If, like the humble hind who tills the earth, I could be satisfied with the rank assigned by Providence, I could be happy; I could raise my hands to heaven, and bless my creator in the temple of nature; bend to my rustic toil, and repose in peace; but there is a war within, which murders rest. I feel as if I had been formed for another destiny, and my spirit cannot submit in meekness to this degradation."
"My Zorilda," answered Mrs. Gordon, "you have not reduced religion to practice, and your trials have been sufficient to render the task of obedience severe; but it must be learned. The morbid sensibility which you encourage blinds your understanding, and you draw false conclusions. The inference which I derive from your dialogue with the stranger this morning is directly opposite to that which you deduce. The soldier's wife was not your mother. Nay, I should decide against her having even been your nurse. The strong instincts of nature are seldom violated, and amid all the depravity of human kind there are few instances of such unnatural character as you take for granted in the present case. Zorilda is not a name by which an English soldier's wife would have been likely to call her daughter; neither would a woman who sold her own child, and whose husband was no longer living to upbraid her, or seek its recovery, have had any apparent motive for the concealment which she desired, in the speedy decampment of the gipsies. Be assured that you are rather the offspring of Spanish parents, probably of rank and consideration. Silk and velvet, of which materials your dress was made when first my sister saw you, are not the common manufactures which clothe inferior people. Who has had the misfortune to lose you, is a mystery which I wish we were enabled to solve, but all that I do know convinces me that you are not the child of her who sold you to the gipsey gang."
"Dear and kind friend," exclaimed Zorilda, "how grateful am I for the tender feeling with which you try to mitigate my pain. I will not repel your efforts—I will adopt your creed—it shall be mine, and I will endeavour to believe that I was indeed stolen from my home by the cruel being who passed me again into stranger hands. But what a fate is mine, when such a surmise is the best consolation which can be offered. Had I been left in my native land, though torn from all I loved, I might have been brought up in the religion of my ancestors, and found an asylum in some friendly convent. You have no such refuge here for the unhappy."
"All England is the refuge of the destitute," replied Mrs. Gordon; "her bounteous shores have been pressed by royal fugitives, and this glorious land, this favoured soil, has sheltered kings as well as slaves from the tyranny of other climes. Shall my Zoé repine at having imbibed the doctrines of a purer faith than that of Spain? The heart may freely dedicate itself to God without the call of matin or of vesper bell. We have altars every where, and do not want the convent's gloomy pile to enshrine our prayers. Those sad receptacles are frequently the scene of guilt, and the prison walls of the religious recluse, too often contain devotion of every kind but that to Heaven."
"Oh forgive my impetuosity; I stand convicted of my error. Be my counsellor; speak peace to a wounded spirit, and you shall find in Zorilda a docile as well as a grateful heart," said the lovely Spaniard, with an expression of countenance so contrite, so imploring, as to touch Mrs. Gordon to the soul; but afraid of indulging affection which would be soon interrupted by her own departure from Henbury, she repressed the tear which rose to her eye, and looking at her young and beautiful companion with an air of encouraging kindness, she kissed, raised her gently from the seat on which they had been conversing, and leading her towards the house, emphatically uttered those inspired words of the royal Psalmist, "Whom have I in Heaven but thee; and whom do I desire on earth beside thee?" adding, "When we can answer this passionate and affecting inquiry with sincerity, and feel that there is no idol dividing the empire of our hearts with that being who will not reign over a disputed kingdom, then, and not till then, shall the distracted bosom find repose."
Zorilda started, coloured violently, and looked as if her heart would burst its prison without permission from her will, but just as her lips were going to obey its impulse, she checked the accents as they were escaping, and after a momentary pause, during which a short but dreadful conflict seemed to convulse her frame, she caught the arm of her friend, and calling up all the fortitude of virtuous resolution to her aid, exclaimed—
"Yes! be it so; God is the orphan's portion. He is the defender of the fatherless. You have touched a hidden chord. The world is of Proteus form; and even in such seclusion as this, its roses or its thorns can occupy the imagination, and divert the soul from its devotion to the Supreme. I will bind your words upon my heart! I will remember that within my own breast there is an altar of dedication to receive my vows. The offering only is wanting to complete the sacrifice, and you have furnished the test by which I am to seek the victim."
"Make no vows, my child," said Mrs. Gordon; "freedom is with noble minds the straitest bondage. Endure your trials; kiss the rod. Believe that affliction comes not from the dust; it is sent from on high to purify and exalt. The murmur of irritability, and the gloomy silence of a sullen temper, are alike remote from that submission which your God requires to fit you for the glorious society of angels. Should an earthly friend be wanted by my Zoé, while I live, remember Drumcairn, and fly to its peaceful retreat."
These words sank too deeply for reply. The Gordons returned to Scotland; and in an hour after they drove from the door. While Zorilda was plunged in the deepest grief and lamentation, a letter arrived to announce the approach of Algernon.