XXV.
"Quem Fors dierum cunque dabit
Lucro appone."--HORAT.
Lionel stood, expectant, in the centre of the room, and as the two female forms entered, the lights were full upon their faces. That younger face--it is she--it is she, the unforgotten--the long-lost. Instinctively, as if no years had rolled between--as if she were still the little child, he the boy who had coveted such a sister--he sprang forward and opened his arms, and as suddenly halted, dropped the arms to, his side, blushing, confused, abashed. She! that vagrant child!--she! that form so elegant--that great peeress's pupil--adopted daughter, she the poor wandering Sophy! She!--impossible!
But her eyes, at first downcast, are now fixed on him. She, too, starts--not forward, but in recoil; she, too, raises her arms, not to open, but to press them to her breast; and she, too, as suddenly checks an impulse, and stands, like him, blushing, confused, abashed.
"Yes," said Caroline Montfort, drawing Sophy nearer to her breast, "yes, you will both forgive me for the surprise. Yes, you do see before you, grown up to become the pride of those who cherish her, that Sophy who--"
"Sophy!" cried Lionel advancing; "it is so, then! I knew you were no stroller's grandchild."
Sophy drew up: "I am, I am his grandchild, and as proud to be so as I was then."
"Pardon me, pardon me; I meant to say that he too was not what he seemed. You forgive me," extending his hand, and Sophy's soft hand fell into his forgivingly.
"But he lives? is well? is here? is--" Sophy burst into tears, and Lady Montfort made a sign to Lionel to go into the garden, and leave them. Reluctantly and dizzily, as one in a dream, he obeyed, leaving the vagrant's grandchild to be soothed in the fostering arms of her whom, an hour or two ago, he knew but by the titles of her rank and the reputation of her pride.
It was not many minutes before Lady Montfort rejoined him.
"You touched unawares," said she, "upon the poor child's most anxious cause of sorrow. Her grandfather; for whom her affection is so sensitively keen, has disappeared.
