all been very
busy blundering. My darling, I have no wife or daughter. Louise is
only mine by adoption. Her father was my dearest friend. This little
one was placed in my arms, an orphan, when only three years old--and
she knew no parent but myself. Can I go to your father, love?"

She no longer tried to release herself from his arms. Lower and lower
drooped the beautiful head until it was pillowed on his breast. He
felt her heart throbbing against his own, and almost bursting with its
fulness of joy. He was answered--rewarded for all the years of
waiting.

At length she raised her head. In her eyes he saw all the love of
years beaming there.

"At last, my Ernest," she said. "I must go to father first and prepare
him to see you."

Springing lightly up the stairs, she entered the room and stood beside
her father's armchair.

He saw her beaming look, and said:

"What is it, Constance? What has brought this great joy to you? You
look so happy."

"Father, we have all been under a great mistake. Ernest has never been
married. That was his adopted daughter. He is waiting to see you; may
I bring him up?"

"Yes, yes. Thank God! my prayers are answered."

In a few moments she stands before him, with her hand clasped in
Ernest's.

"Here I am again, Mr. Lyle, as in years gone by, pleading for your
blessing on our love. May I have her now, after all these years of
waiting?"

"Ernest Moreton, I am profoundly thankful to Heaven for sparing me to
see this day. Welcome back to your home and old friends, and welcome
to the hand of my daughter. Take her; she has been a loving, patient,
dutiful child. She has brightened and cheered my path for a long,
weary time, and now I resign this blessing to you, and beg your
forgiveness for these long years, lost to both, which might have been
passed happily together."

"Not resign, but only share with me, this blessing; she shall never
leave you, sir," replied Ernest.

"Father, do not speak of years lost; they have not been. Ernest would
not have gone away, and devoted himself to study, if we had been
united then; just think then what his adopted State would have lost!
and I have been cheering you--think what you would have lost without
your little Constance! Nay, there is nothing lost; all is gain, and
simply by keeping God's command, 'Honor thy father and thy mother.'"

"Let me come in to rejoice with you all, and make my speech,"
exclaimed the noble Gerald, grasping the han