carried there.  He pressed it between his hands, sighed heavily from his care-crazed heart, and strove to tell his meaning in words which would not flow, in which he knew not how to breathe the bubble-thought that danced about his brain.  Closer than ever he approached me, and, with an air which he intended for one of confidence and great regard, he invited me to look upon his treasure.  I did so, and, to my astonishment and terror—­gazed upon the portrait of the unhappy EMMA HARRINGTON.  Gracious God! what thoughts came rushing into my mind!  It was impossible to err.  I, who had passionately dwelt upon those lineaments in all the fondness of a devoted love, until the form became my heart’s companion by day and night—­I, who had watched the teardrops falling from those eyes, in which the limner had not failed to fix the natural sorrow that was a part of them—­watched and hung upon them in distress and agony—­I, surely I, could not mistake the faithful likeness.  Who, then, was he that wore it?  Who was this, now standing at my side, to turn to whom again became immediately—­sickness—­horror!  Who could it be but him, the miserable parricide—­the outcast—­the unhappy brother—­the desperately wicked son!  There was no other in the world to whom the departed penitent could be dear; and he—­oh, was it difficult to suppose that merciful Heaven, merciful to the guiltiest, had placed between his conscience and his horrible offence a cloud that made all dim—­had rendered his understanding powerless to comprehend a crime which reason must have punished and aggravated endlessly My judgment was prostrated by what I learned so suddenly and fearfully.  The discovery had been miraculous.  What should I do?  How proceed?  How had the youth got here?  What had been his history since his flight?  Whither was he wandering?  Did he know the fate of his poor sister?  How had he lived?  These questions, and others, crowded into my mind one after another, and I trembled with the violent rapidity of thought.  The figure of the unhappy girl presented itself—­her words vibrated on my ears—­her last dying accents; and I felt that to me was consigned the wretched object of her solicitude and love—­that to me Providence had directed the miserable man; yes, if only that he who had shared in the family guilt, might behold and profit by the living witness of the household wreck.  Half forgetful of the presence of the brother, and remembering nothing well but her and her most pitiable tale, oppressed by a hundred recollections, I pronounced her name.

“Poor, poor, much-tried Emma!” I ejaculated, gazing still upon her image.  The idiot leaped from my side at the word, and clapped his hands, and laughed and shrieked.  He ran to me again, and seized my palm, and pressed it to his lips.  His excitement was unbounded.  He could only point to the picture, endeavour to repeat the word which I had spoken, and direct his finger to my lips beseechingly, as though he prayed to hear the sound again.  Alarmed already at what I had done, and dreading the consequences of a disclosure, because ignorant of the effect it would produce upon the idiot, I checked myself immediately, and spake no more.  Robin returned.  I contrived to subdue by degrees the sudden ebullition, and having succeeded, I restored the criminal to his keeper, and departed.