Virginius. I thank thee, Jupiter, I am still a father!"
The change of his countenance while uttering the word "father," from the expression it wore on the word "silence," was like an unexpected sunburst through a gloomy cloud. As Lucius went on in his narration, the breathing of the listener thickened with intensity of suspense, his heart beat with remittent throb, and he started at each point in the outrage like one receiving electric shocks.
He departed for Rome, where his poor daughter was guarded in the house of her uncle, Numitorius, in the deepest distress and terror. He entered; and such was his expression as he cried, "My child! my child!" and she rushed into his arms, that there were scarcely ever many dry eyes in the theatre at that moment. Then it was something divine to be seen, and never to be forgotten, to behold how he turned from his blistering and disdainful apostrophe to the villain who had dared set his panders after her, and, taking her precious head in his hands, gazed in her face, saying,—
"I never saw you look so like your mother
In all my life!
Virginia. You'll be advised, dear father?
Virginius. It was her soul,—her soul, that played just then
About the features of her child, and lit them
Into the likeness of her own. When first
She placed thee in my arms,—I recollect it