‘My own mother! Is she one I can be so fond of as I can of you? People generally did not like her, so I have been given to understand.’
‘They told you that? Well, your mother now tells you that, not having the gift to please people generally, for their approbation she does not care; her thoughts are centred in her child. Does that child welcome or reject her?’
‘But if you are my mother, the world is all changed to me. Surely I can live—I should like to recover—’
‘You must recover. You drew life and strength from my breast when you were a tiny, fair infant, over whose blue eyes I used to weep, fearing I beheld in your very beauty the sign of qualities that had entered my heart like iron, and pierced through my soul like a sword. Daughter! we have been long parted; I return now to cherish you again.’
She held her to her bosom, she cradled her in her arms, she rocked her softly, as if lulling a young child to sleep.
‘My mother! My own mother!’
The offspring nestled to the parent; that parent, feeling the endearment and hearing the appeal, gathered her closer still. She covered her with noiseless kisses: she murmured love over her, like a cushat fostering its young.
There was silence in the room for a long while.
‘Does my uncle know?’
‘Your uncle knows: I told him when I first came to stay with you here.’
‘Did you recognise me when we first met at Field-head?’
‘How could it be otherwise? Mr. and Miss Helstone being announced, I was prepared to see my child.’
‘It was that then which moved you: I saw you disturbed.’
‘You saw nothing, Caroline; I can cover my feelings. You can never tell what an age of strange sensation I lived during the two minutes that elapsed between the report of your name and your entrance. You can never tell how your look, mien, carriage, shook me.’
‘Why? Were you disappointed?’
‘What will she be like? I had asked myself; and when I saw what you were like I could have dropped.’
‘Mamma, why?’
‘I trembled in your presence. I said, I will never own her; she shall never know me.’
‘But I said and did nothing remarkable. I felt a little diffident at the thought of an introduction to strangers, that was all.’
‘I soon saw you were diffident; that was the first thing which reassured me: had you been rustic, clownish, awkward, I should have been content.’
‘You puzzle me.’
‘I had reason to dread a fair outside, to mistrust a popular bearing, to shudder before distinction, grace, and courtesy. Beauty and affability had come in my way when I was recluse, desolate, young, and ignorant: a