you please) must be mailed in adamant! Convinced, and apparently with
every reason, that she is not his daughter's child, but, however
innocently, an impostor, how can he receive her as his young kinsman's
bride? How can we expect it?"

"But," said Lionel, "if, on farther investigation, she prove to be his
daughter's child--the sole surviving representative of his line and
name?"

"His name! No! Of the name of Losely--the name of that turbulent
sharper, who may yet die on the gibbet--of that poor, dear, lovable
rascal Willy, who was goose enough to get himself transported for
robbery!--a felon's grandchild the representative of Darrell's line!
But how on earth came Lady Montfort to favour so wild a project, and
encourage you to share in it?--she who ought to have known Darrell
better?"

"Alas! she saw but Sophy's exquisite, simple virtues, and inborn grace;
and, believing her claim to Darrell's lineage, Lady Montfort thought but
of the joy and blessing one so good and so loving might bring to his
joyless hearth. She was not thinking of morbid pride and mouldering
ancestors, but of soothing charities and loving ties. And Lady Montfort,
I now suspect, in her scheme for our happiness--for Darrell's--had an
interest which involved her own!"

"Her own!"

"Yes; I see it all now."

"See what? you puzzle me."