It was heaven, answered he, that inspired you with that abhorrence of my offers, which, had you accepted, we must both have been eternally undone!—­You are my daughter, Louisa! pursued he, my own natural daughter!—­Rise then, and take a father’s blessing.

All that can be said of astonishment would be far short of what she felt at these words:—­the happiness seemed so great she could not think it real, tho’ uttered from mouth she knew unaccustomed to deceit:—­a hundred times, without giving him leave to satisfy her doubts, did she cry out, My father!—­my father!—­my real father!—­How can it be!—­Is there a possibility that Louisa owes her being to Dorilaus!

Yes, my Louisa, answered he, and flatter myself, by what I have observed of your disposition, you have done nothing, since our parting, that might prevent my glorying in being the parent of such a child.

The hurry of spirit she was in, prevented her from taking notice of these last words, or at least from making any answer to them, and she still continued crying out,—­Dorilaus, my father!—­Good heaven! may I believe I am so blessed?—­Who then is my mother!—­Wherefore have I been so long ignorant of what I was!—­And how is the joyful secret at last revealed!

All these things you shall be fully informed of, answered he; in the mean time be satisfied I do not deceive you, and am indeed your father:  transported to find my long lost child, whom I myself knew not was so till I believed her gone for ever;—­a thousand times I have wished both you and Horatio were my children, but little suspected you were so, till after his too eager ambition deprived me of him, and my mistaken love drove you to seek a refuge among strangers.

Tears of joy and tenderness now bedewed the faces of both father and daughter:—­silence for some moments succeeded the late acclamations; but Dorilaus at length finding her fully convinced she was as happy as he said she was, and entirely freed from all those apprehensions which had occasioned her flying from him, told her he was settled in Paris; that he lived just opposite to the house where she had stood up on account of the shower, and happening to be at one of his windows immediately knew her; that he sent a servant after her, who had enquired how long she had been arrived, and in what manner she came; that he had sent for her with no other intent then to make trial how she would resent it, and was transported to find her answer such as he hoped and had expected from her:—­he added, that he had all the anxiety of a father to hear by what means she had been supported, and the motive which induced her to travel in the habit of a pilgrim, as the matter of the hotel had informed his servant; but that he would defer his satisfaction till she should be in a place more becoming his daughter.

On concluding these words he called for the master of the hotel, and having defrayed what little expences she had been at since her coming there, took her by the hand and led her to his chariot, which soon brought them to a magnificent, house, and furnished in a manner answerable to the birth and fortune of the owner.