ways and thoughts and feelings; and, above all, the privilege of the
friendship and instruction of the schoolmaster, to whom he owed more
than eternity could reveal.

Then he turned again to his narrative, and told how his father, falsely
informed that his wife and child were dead, married Florimel's mother;
how his mother, out of compassion for both of them, held her peace; how
for twenty years she had lived with her cousin, Miss Horn, and held her
peace even from her; how at last, when, having succeeded to the
property, she heard he was coming to the House, the thought of his
nearness, yet unapproachableness--in this way at least he, the child of
both, interpreted the result--so worked upon a worn and enfeebled frame
that she died.

Then he told how Miss Horn, after his mother's death, came upon letters
revealing the secret which she had all along known must exist, but after
which, from love and respect for her cousin, she had never inquired.

Last of all, he told how, in a paroxysm of rage, Mrs. Catanach had let
the secret of his birth escape her; how she had afterward made affidavit
concerning it; and how his father had upon his deathbed, with all
necessary legal observances, acknowledged him his son and heir.

"And now, to the mighty gladness of my soul," he said, looking on
Florimel at his side, "my dearly-loved and honored sister--loved and
honored long before I knew she was my own--has accepted me as her
brother, and I do not think she greatly regrets the loss of the headship
of the house which she has passed over to me. She will lose little else.
And of all women, it may well be to her a small matter to lose a mere
title, seeing she is so soon to change her name for one which will bring
her honor of a more enduring reality. For he who is about to become her
husband is not only one of the noblest of men, but a man of genius whose
praises she will hear on all sides. One of his works, the labor and gift
of love, you shall see when we rise from the table. It is a portrait of
your late landlord, my father, painted partly from a miniature, partly
from my sister, partly from the portraits of the family, and partly, I
am happy to think, from myself. You must yourselves judge of the truth
of it. And you will remember that Mr. Lenorme never saw my father: I say
this, not to excuse, but to enhance his work.

"My tenants, I will do my best to give you fair play. My friend and
factor, Mr. Crathie, has confided to me h