faithful servant of our house, and warmly attached to my second son;
tell my poor boy, if ever you see him, that I did at last open my eyes
to my error and acknowledge him as my child; tell him that I have
desired his brother (who was then, sir, kneeling by my lord's side),
as he values my blessing, to seek him out and repair the wrong I have
done him; and add that my best comfort in death was the hope of his
forgiveness."

"Did he, did he say that?" exclaimed Clarence, who had been violently
agitated during the latter part of this recital, and now sprang from
his seat. "My father, my father! would that I had borne with thee
more! mine, mine was the fault; from thee should have come the
forgiveness!"

The old steward sat silent and aghast. At that instant his wife
entered, with a message of chiding at the lateness of the hour upon
her lip, but she started back when she saw Clarence's profile, as he
stood leaning against the wall.

"Good heavens!" cried she, "is it, is it,--yes, it is my young master,
my own foster-son!"

Rightly had Clarence conjectured, when he had shunned her presence.
Years had indeed wrought a change in his figure and face;
acquaintance, servant, friend, relation,--the remembrance of his
features had passed from all: but she who had nursed him as an infant
on her lap and fed him from her breast, she who had joined the
devotion of clanship to the fondness of a mother, knew him at a
glance. "Yes," cried he, as he threw himself into her withered and
aged arms, "it is I, the child you reared, come, after many years, to