“No, Arnold; call it a restitution, not a misfortune.  I have been living all these years on the money which belongs to Claude’s heirs.”

“There was a son, then.  And now he has dropped upon us from the clouds?”

“It is a daughter, not a son.  But you shall hear.  I received a letter this morning from a person called Dr. Joseph Washington, stating that he wrote to me on account of the only child and heiress of the late Claude Deseret.”

“Who is Dr. Joseph Washington?”

“He is a physician, he says, and an American.”

“Yes; will you go on?”

“I do not mind it, Arnold; I really do not.  I must give up my house and put down my carriage, but it is for Claude’s daughter.  I rejoice to think that he has left some one behind him.  Arnold, that face upon your canvas really has got eyes wonderfully like his, if it was not a mere fancy, when I saw it yesterday.  I am glad, I say, to give up everything to the child of Claude.”

“You think so kindly of him, Clara, who inflicted so much pain on you.”

“I can never think bitterly of Claude.  We were brought up together; we were like brother and sister; he never loved me in any other way.  Oh, I understood it all years ago.  To begin with, I was never beautiful; and it was his father’s mistake.  Well:  this American followed up his letter by a visit.  In the letter he merely said he had come to London with the heiress.  But he called an hour ago, and brought me—­oh, Arnold, he brought me one more letter from Claude.  It has been waiting for me for eighteen years.  After all that time, after eighteen years, my poor dead Claude speaks to me again.  My dear, when I thought he was miserable on account of his marriage, I was wrong.  His wife made him happy, and he died because she died.”  The tears came into her eyes again.  “Poor boy!  Poor Claude!  The letter speaks of his child.  It says—­” She opened and read the letter.  “He says:  ’Some day my child will, I hope, come to you, and say:  Cousin Clara, I am Iris Deseret.’”

“Iris?” said Arnold.

“It is her name, Arnold.  It was the child’s grandmother’s name.”

“A strange coincidence,” he said.  “Pray go on.”

“’She will say:  Cousin Clara, I am Iris Deseret.  Then you will be kind to her, as you would to me, if I were to come home again.’  I cannot read any more, my dear, even to you.”

“Did this American give you any other proof of what he asserts?”

“He gave me a portrait of Claude, taken years ago, when he was a boy of sixteen, and showed me the certificate of marriage, and the child’s certificate of baptism, and letters from his wife.  I suppose nothing more can be wanted.”

“I dare say it is all right, Clara.  But why was not the child brought over before?”

“Because—­this is the really romantic part of the story—­when her father died, leaving the child, she was adopted by these charitable Americans, and no one ever thought of examining the papers, which were lying in a desk, until the other day.”