he sea and remain
with Mr. Reed ever since; and that they, the twins, had grown up
together the happiest brother and sister in that part of the country,
until "the long, lank man" had come to mar their happiness, and Uncle
had been mysteriously bothered, and had seemed sometimes to be
unreasonably annoyed at Dorothy's innocent peculiarities of manner and
temperament. But now Donald learned of the doubts that from the first
had perplexed Mr. Reed; of the repeated efforts that he had made to
ascertain which one of the three babies had been lost; how he had been
baffled again and again, until at last he had given himself up to a dull
hope that the little girl who had become so dear was really his
brother's child, and joint heir with Donald to his and his brother's
estates; and how Eben Slade actually had come to claim her and take her
away, threatening to blight the poor child by proving that she was _his_
niece, Delia Robertson, and not Dorothy Reed at all.

Poor Donald! Dorry had been so surely his sister that until now he had
taken his joy in her as a matter of course,--as a part of his existence,
bright and necessary as light and air, and never questioned. She was
Dorry, he even now felt confident, not Delia--Delia, the poor little
cousin who was lost; certainly not. She was Dorry and he was Donald. If
she was not Dorry, then who was he? Who was Uncle George? Who were all
the persons they knew, and what did everything in life mean?

No, he would not give her up--he could not. Something within him
resented the idea, then scouted it, and finally set him up standing
before his uncle, so straight, so proud in his bearing, so joyfully
scornful of anything that threatened to take his sister away from him,
that Mr. George rose also and waited for him to speak, as though
Donald's one word must settle the question for ever.

"Well, my boy?"

"Uncle, I am absolutely sure of it. Our Dorry is Dorothy Reed--here with
us alive and well, and I mean to prove it!"

"God grant it, Donald!"

"Well, Uncle, I must go now to bring my sister home. Of course, I shall
not tell her a word of what has passed between us this evening. That
scoundrel! to think of his intending to tell her that she was his
sister's child! Poor Dot! think of the shock to her. Just suppose he had
convinced her, made her think that it was true, that it was her duty to
go with him, care for him, and all that--Why, Uncle, with her spirit and
high notions of right,