Her clasping arms tightened about her mother’s waist, and after a short silence, Mrs. Orme exclaimed: 

“It is true.  It has always been so.  From the hour when you were born, and your little round head black with silky locks was first laid upon my arm, your face stabbed me like a dagger, and your eyes are blue steel that murder my peace.  My daughter, my daughter, you are the exact counterpart, the beautiful image of your father!  It is because I see in your eyes so wonderfully blue the reproduction of his, and about your mouth and brows the graceful lines of his, that I shudder while I look at you.  Ah, my darling! is it not hard that your beauty should sting like a serpent the mother whose blood filled your veins?  The very tones of your voice, the carriage of your head, even the peculiar shape of your fingers and nails, are his—­all his!  Oh, my baby! my white lamb! my precious little one, if I had not fed you from my bosom—­cradled you in my arms—­realized that you were indeed flesh of my flesh—­my own unfortunate, unprotected disowned baby, I believe I should hate you!”

She bowed her head in her hands, and groaned aloud.

“Forgive me, mother.  If I had imagined the real cause, I would never have inquired.  Let it pass.  Tell me nothing that will bring such a storm of grief as this.  God knows I wish I resembled you—­only you.”

She covered her mother’s hands with kisses, and tears gathered in her eyes.

“No; God knew best, and in His wisdom, His mercy for widowhood and orphanage, He stamped your father’s unmistakable likeness indelibly upon you.  Providentially a badge of honourable parentage was set upon the deserted infant, which neither fraud, slander, nor perjury can ever remove.  The laws God set to work in nature defy the calumny, the corruption, the vindictive persecution and foul injustice cloaked under legal statutes, human decrees; and though a world swore to the contrary, your face proclaims your father, and his own image will hunt him through all his toils and triumphantly confront him with his crime.  No jury ever empanelled could see you side by side with your father, and dare to doubt that you were his child!  No, bitter as are the memories your countenance recalls, I hold it the keenest weapon in the armoury of my revenge.”

“Let us talk of something that grieves and agitates you less.  May I sing you a song always associated with your portrait, an invocation sacred to my lovely mother?”

“No, sometime you must know the history I have carefully hidden from all but Mr. Palma and your dead guardian; and now that the bitter waves are already roaring over me, why should I delay the narration?  It was not my purpose to tell you thus, I though it would too completely unnerve me, and I wrote the story of my life in the form of a drama, and called it Infelice! But the recital is in Mr. Chesley’s hands for perusal; and I shall feel stronger, less oppressed, when I have talked freely with you.  Kiss me, my pure darling, my own little nameless treasure, my fatherless baby; for indeed I need the elixir of my daughter’s love to keep me human when I dwell upon the past.”