Penny Blood Serial Fiction — page 208: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

DISCOURSE - 19) ment yesterday, Elizabeth, when I was about to breathe the one word which would have told you who I was. It was when you besought me so earnestly to speak that one word. And it would have been spoken had not you, Frank, together with Adolphus, returned to the cottage at the time. But now at last you know everything, and let me hope, my dear children, you do not feel that you ought to blush for the author of your being because he led your mother into frailty.”’ Neither Elizabeth nor Frank gave any verbal reply to this question, but a still more eloquent response was afforded by the manner in which they precipitated themselves into their father’s arms, bestowing upon him the most endearing caresses. ‘This is a happiness,” he continued, “‘ which, had any one predicted it to me but a few weeks back, or even only a few days, I should not have believed that it was possible. Not but that I anticipated a feeling of delight in meeting my children, if they were still alive and to be found, but I thought not that my own nature remained susceptible of such unalloyed and ineffable bliss. I feared that it was warped by past sorrows, changed by the afflictions of other years, rendered morbid and unhealthy by various eccentric- ities. I find that itis not so, and I love you, my dear children, oh, I love you, with all the gushing effusion which the most youthful father could possibly experience when strain- ing his offspring in his arms.” There was another long pause, and when the feelings of the father, the daughter, and the son had subsided into calmness again, they began to converse relative to Adolphus. “You have told me, Elizabeth,” said the Marquis of Eagledean, “‘ that in accumulating all possible proofs of that villain Everton’s guilt, together with the identity of Adolphus as the son of the late General Lord Everton, you had it in view to bring the base usurper to a private and amicable settlement, so that a public scandal, in which her ladyship’s name might by chance be painfully brought in, should be avoided. You have acted wisely and well. All your proceedings have been marked by the most delicate consideration, and characterized by the soundest judgment. It is now for me to take the work out of your hands. J will repair at once to Beech-tree Lodge, in the hope of finding Gomicdoo ‘Ss EO)