red. But bear with me when I add, resolutely and calmly, that this
nurse's attestation is to me a grosser and poorer attempt at imposture
than I had anticipated; and I am amazed that a man of your abilities
should have been contented to accept it."

"Oh, Mr. Darrell, don't say so! It was such a blessing to think, when
my son was lost to me, that I might fill up the void in my heart with
an innocent, loving child. Don't talk of my abilities. If you, whose
abilities none can question--if you had longed and yearned for such a
comforter--if you had wished--if you wished now this tale to be true,
you would have believed it too; you would believe it now--you would
indeed. Two men look so differently at the same story--one deeply
interested that it should be true--one determined, if possible, to find
it false. Is it not so?"

Darrell smiled slightly, but could not be induced to assent even to so
general a proposition. He felt as if he were pitted against a counsel
who would take advantage of every concession.

Waife continued. "And whatever seems most improbable in this confession,
is rendered probable at once--if--if--we may assume that my unhappy son,
tempted by the desire to--to--"

"Spare yourself--I understand-if your son wished to obtain his wife's
fortune, and therefore connived at the exchange of the infants, and was
therefore, too, enabled always to corroborate the story of the exchange
whenever it suited him to reclaim the infant, I grant this--and I
grant that the conjecture is sufficiently plausible to justify you in
attaching to it much weight. We will allow that it was his interest at
one time to represent his child, though living, as no more; but you must
allow also that he would have deemed it his interest later, to fasten
upon me, as my daughter's, a child to whom she never gave birth. Here we
entangle ourselves in a controversy without data, without facts. Let us
close it. Believe what you please. Why should I shake convictions that
render you happy? Be equally forbearing with me. I do full justice to
your Sophy's charming qualities. In herself, the proudest parent might
rejoice to own her; but I cannot acknowledge her to be the daughter of
Matilda Darrell. And the story that assured you she was your grandchild,
still more convinces me that she is not mine!"

"But be not thus inflexible, I implore you;--you can be so kind, so
gentle;--she would be such a blessing to you--later--perhaps--when I
am dead. I