contrive to be in at the death.

"But you are waiting to learn by what title and name this stranger lays
claim to so peerless a niece. Know then Ah, here comes Darrell. Guy
Darrell, in this young lady you will welcome the grandchild of Sidney
Branthwaite, our old Eton school friend, a gentleman of as good blood as
any in the land!"

"None better," cried Fairthorn, who had sidled himself into the group;
"there's a note on the Branthwaite genealogy, sir, in your father's
great work upon 'Monumental Brasses.'"

"Permit me to conclude, Mr. Fairthorn," resumed the Colonel; "Monumental
Brasses are painful subjects. Yes, Darrell,--yes, Lionel; this fair
creature, whom Lady Montfort might well desire to adopt, is the daughter
of Arthur Branthwaite, by marriage with the sister of Frank Vance, whose
name I shrewdly suspect nations will prize, and whose works princes will
hoard, when many a long genealogy, all blazoned in azure and or, will
have left not a scrap for the moths."

"Ah!" murmured Lionel, "was it not I, Sophy, who taught you to love your
father's genius! Do you not remember how, as we bent over his volume, it
seemed to translate to us our own feelings?--to draw us nearer together?
He was speaking to us from his grave."

Sophy made no answer; her face was hidden on the breast of the old man,
to whom she still clung closer and closer.

"Is it so? Is it certain? Is there no doubt that she is the child of
these honoured parents?" asked Waife, tremulously.

"None," answered Alban; "we bring with us proofs that will clear up all
my story."

The old man bowed his head over Sophy's fair locks for a moment; then
raised it, serene and dignified: "You are mine for a moment yet, Sophy,"
said he.

"Yours as ever-more fondly, gratefully than ever," cried Sophy.

"There is but one man to whom I can willingly yield you. Son of Charles
Haughton, take my treasure."

"I consent to that," cried Vance, "though I am put aside like a
Remorseless Baron. And, Lionello mio, if Frank Vance is a miser, so much
the better for his niece."

"But," faltered Lionel.

"Oh, falter not. Look into those eyes; read that blush now. She looks
coy, not reluctant. She bends before him--adorned as for love, by
all her native graces. Air seems brightened by her bloom. No more the
Outlaw-Child of Ignominy and Fraud, but the Starry Daughter of POETRY
AND ART! Lo, where they glide away under the leafless, melancholy trees.
Leafless and melancholy