“Sir, do not attribute this strange behaviour upon my part to rudeness.  It has been prompted by feelings painfully, deeply, I may add tenderly, interesting to me.  It may be accident, but your features bring memories before my eyes that have become a part of my soul’s existence.  Nor is it your features only, but I have observed that there is the mark of a rose-bud beneath your chin.  I remember twins on whom that mark was manifest, and the likeness of a countenance is graven upon my heart, the lineaments of which were as yours are.  Forgive me then, sir, in thus abruptly requesting your name.”

The lieutenant looked surprised at the anxiety and looks of the stranger, and he answered—­

“My name is Charles Sim.”

“Yes! yes!” replied the colonel, gasping as he spoke; “I saw it; I felt it!  Your name is Charles, but not Sim; that was your mother’s name—­your sainted mother’s.  You bear it from your grandfather You come from Cumberland?”

“I do!” was the reply, in accents of astonishment.

“My son! my son!—­child of my Maria!” were the accents that broke from the colonel, as he fell upon the neck of the other.

“My father!” exclaimed Charles, “have I then found a father?” And the tears streamed down his cheeks.

Many questions were asked, many answered; and amongst others, the father inquired—­

“Where is your brother—­my little George?  Does he live?  You were the miniatures of your mother; and so strikingly did you resemble each other, that while you were infants, it was necessary to tie a blue ribbon round his arm, and a green one round yours, to distinguish you from each other.”

Charles became pale; his knees shook; his hands trembled.

“Then I had a brother?” he cried.

“You had,” replied his father; “but wherefore do you say you had a brother?  Is it possible that you do not know him?  He has been brought up with my father—­Mr. Morris of Morris House.”

“No, he has not,” replied Charles; “the man you speak of, and whom you say is my grandfather, has brought up no one—­none of my age.  I have hated him from childhood, for he has hated me; and but that you have told me he is my grandfather, I would hate him still.  But he has brought up no one that could be a brother of mine.”

“Then my child has died in infancy,” rejoined the colonel.

“No, no,” added Charles; “I knew not that I had a brother—­not even that I had a father; but you say my brother resembled me; that I from my birth had the mark beneath my chin which I have now, and that he had the same:  then I know him; I have seen my brother!”

“Where, where? when, when?” breathlessly inquired the anxious parent.  “Speak, my son!—­oh speak!”