Ah, dear child! precious child! where is he now ?--Where and what indeed! Alas, poor father! had you known what I do, and shall soon inform the world, of that bad man's awful end, one more, one fiercest pang would have tormented you: but Heaven spared that pang.
Nevertheless, the bitter contrast of the child and of the man had made him very wretched--and to the widower's solitude added the father's sadness.
And worst of all--Maria's utter loss--that dear, warm-hearted, innocent, ill-used, and yet beloved daughter.

Why did he spurn her away?
and keep her away so long ?--oh, hard heart, hard heart! Was she not innocent, after all?
and John, bad John, too probably the forger of that letter, as the forger of this will?
And now that he should give his life to see her, and kiss her, and--no, no, not forgive her, but pray to be forgiven by her--"Where is she?
why doesn't she come to hold up my poor weak head--to see how fervently my dead old heart has at last learnt to love--to help a bad, and hard, a pardoned and penitent old man to die in perfect peace--to pray with me, for me, to God, our God, my daughter! Where is she--how can I find her out--why will she not come to me all this sorrowful year?
Oh come, come, dear child--our Father send thee to me--come and bless me ere I die--come, my Maria!" Magical, or contrived, as it may seem to us, the poor old man was actually bemoaning himself thus, when our dear heroine of the Heart faintly knocked at her old home door.

It opened; a faded-looking woman, with a baby in her arms, rushed past the astonished butler: and, just as her father was praying out aloud for Heaven to speed her to him, that daughter's step was at the bed-room door.
Before she turned the handle (some house-maid had recognised her on the stairs, and told her, with an impudent air, that "Sir Thomas was ill a-bed"), she stopped one calming instant to gain strength of God for that dreaded interview, and to check herself from bursting in upon the chamber of sickness, so as to disquiet that dear weak patient.

So, she prayed, gently turned the handle, and heard those thrilling words--"Come, my Maria!" It was enough; their hearts burst out together like twin fountains, rolling their joyful sorrows together towards the sea of endless love, as a swollen river that has broken through some envious and constraining dam! It was enough; they wept together, rejoiced together, kissed and clasped each other in the fervour of full love: the babe lay smiling and playing on the bed: Maria, in a torrent of happiest tears, fondled that poor old man, who was crying and laughing by turns, as little children do--was praising God out loud like a saint, and calling down blessings on his daughter's head in all the transports of a new-found Heart.

What a world of things they had to tell of--how much to explain, excuse, forgive, and be forgiven, especially about that wicked letter--how fervently to make up now for love that long lay dormant--how heartily to bless each other, and to bless again! Who can record it all?
Who can even sketch aright the heavenly hues that shone about that scene of the affections?
Alas, my pen is powerless--yea, no mortal hand can trace those heavenly hues.