ur 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."

She strained the girl to her heart, then put her away and rose.
Opening a strong metallic box conceal