What a contrast did the large, airy, pleasant nursery room of Mrs. Brahan present, to the narrow cell I had so lately quitted! I accompanied her there after dinner, while Richard, anxious to follow up the impression he had made, returned to the prison, taking with him his mother's Bible. I had hardly thought of the communication which he said he wished to make, till I saw Richard depart. Then it recurred to me; but it did not seem possible that it could interest or affect me much, though it might my brother.

I have not spoken of Mrs. Brahan's children, because I have had so much to say of others; but she had children, and very lovely ones, who were the crowning blessings of her home. Her eldest were at school, but there were three inmates of the nursery, from five to ten years of age, adorned with the sweetest charms of childhood, brightness, purity, and bloom. She called them playfully her three little graces; and I never admired her so much, as when she made herself a child in their midst, and participated in their innocent amusements. After supper they were brought into the parlor to be companions of their father one hour, which he devoted exclusively to their instruction and recreation; but after dinner Mrs. Brahan took the place of the nurse, or rather governess, and I felt it a privilege to be with her, it made me feel so entirely at home, and the presence of childhood freshened and enlivened the spirits. It seemed as if fairy fingers were scattering rose-leaves on my heart. Was it possible that these young, innocent creatures would ever become hardened by worldliness, polluted by sin, or saddened by sorrow? And yet the doomed dweller of the Tombs had said that morning, "that he was once a praying child at his mother's knee!" How would that mother have felt, if, when his innocent hands were folded on her lap and his cherub lips repeated words which perhaps angels interpreted, she could have looked into future years, and beheld the condemned and blasted being in whose withering veins her own lifeblood was flowing?

While I was reclining on the children's bed and the youngest little girl was playing with my ringlets, as short and childish as her own, I was told a gentleman was in the parlor, who inquired for me.

"Cannot I excuse myself?" I asked of Mrs. Brahan. "I did not wish any one to know that I was in the city. I did not wish to meet any of my former acquaintances."

Then it suddenly flashed into my mind, that it might be some one who brought tidings of Ernest, some one who had met the "Star of the East," on his homeward voyage. There was nothing wild in the idea, and when I mentioned it to Mrs. Brahan, she said it was possible, and that I had better go down. Supposing it was a messenger of evil! I felt as if I had borne all I could bear, and live. Then all at once I thought of the stranger whom I had seen in the vestibule of the prison, and I was sure it was he. But who was he, and why had he come? I was obliged to stop at the door, to command my agitation, so nervous had I been made by the shock from which I had not yet recovered. My cheeks burned, but my hands were cold as ice.

Yes, it was he. The moment I opened the door, I recognized him, the stately stranger of the Tombs. He was standing in front of the beautiful painting of the fortress, and his face was from me. But he turned at my entrance, and advanced eagerly to meet me. He was excessively pale, and varying emotions swept over his countenance, like clouds drifted by a stormy wind. Taking both my hands in his, he drew me towards him, with a movement I had no power to resist, and looked in my face with eyes in which every passion of the soul seemed concentrated, but in which joy like a sun-ray shone triumphant.

Even before he opened his arms and clasped me to his bosom, I felt an invisible power drawing me to his heart, and telling me I had a right to be there.

"Gabriella! child of my Rosalie! my own lost darling!" he exclaimed, in broken accents, folding me closer and closer in his arms, as if fearing I would vanish from his embrace. "Gracious God! I thank thee,—Heavenly Father! I bless thee for this hour. After long years of mourning, and bereavement, and loneliness, to find a treasure so dear, to feel a joy so holy! Oh, my God, what shall I render unto Thee for all thy benefits!"

Then he bowed his head on my neck, and I felt hot tears gushing from his eyes, and sobs, like the deep, passionate sobs of childhood, convulsing his breast.

Yes, he was my father. I knew it,—I felt it, as if the voice of God had spoken from the clouds of heaven to proclaim it. He was my father, the beloved of my angelic mother, and he had never wronged her, never. He had not been the deceiver, but the deceived. Without a word of explanation I believed this, for it was written as if in sunbeams on his noble brow. The dreams of my childhood were all embodied in him; and overpowered by reverence, love, gratitude, and joy, I slid from his arms, and on bended knees and with clasped hands, looked up in his face and repeated again and again the sacred name of "Father."

It is impossible to describe such bewildering, such intense emotions. Seldom, except in dreams, are they felt, when the spirit seems free from the fetters of earth. Even when I found myself sitting by his side, still encircled in his arms and leaning on his heart, I could scarcely convince myself that the scene was real.

"And Richard, my brother!" I cried, beginning to feel bewildered at the mysteries that were to be unravelled; "joy is not perfect till he shares it with me."

"Will it make you unhappy, my darling Gabriella, to know that Richard is your cousin, instead of your brother?"

I pressed my hands on my forehead, for it ached with the quick, lightning-like thoughts that flashed through my brain.

"And he, the inmate of yon dismal cell?" I exclaimed, anticipating, as if by intuition, the reply,—

"Is my brother, my twin brother, whom in youth our mother could not distinguish from myself. This fatal resemblance has caused all my woe. TherÉsa la Fontaine was his wife and Richard is his son, not mine."

How simple, how natural, all this seemed! Why had not my mother dreamed of the possibility of such a thing! Knowing the existence of this brother, why had she not at once found in him the solution of the dark problem, which was the enigma as well as anguish of her life?

"My unhappy brother!" said he, while a dark shade rested on his brow; "little did I think, when I visited his dungeon this morning, of the revelation he would make! I have been an exile and a wanderer many years, or I might perhaps have learned sooner what a blessing Heaven has been guarding for my sad and lonely heart. I saw you as you passed out of the prison, and your resemblance to my beloved Rosalie struck me, as an electric shock."

"And yours to him whom I believed my father, had the same effect on me. How strange it was, that then I felt as if I would give worlds to call you father, instead of the wretched being I had just quitted."

"Then you are willing to acknowledge me, my beloved, my lovely daughter," said he, pressing a father's kiss on my forehead, from which his hand fondly put back the clustering locks. "My daughter! let me repeat the name. My daughter! how sweet, how holy it sounds! Had she lived, or had she only known before she died, the constancy and purity of my love; but forgive me, thou Almighty chastener of man's erring heart! I dare not murmur. She knows all this now. She has given me her divine forgiveness."

"She left it with me, father, to give you; not only her forgiveness, but her undying love, and her dying blessing."

Withdrawing the arm with which he still embraced me, he bowed his face on his hands, and I hardly dared to breathe lest I should disturb the sacredness of his emotions. "She knows all this now." My heart repeated the words. Methought the wings of her spirit were hovering round us,—her husband and her child,—whom the hand of God had brought together after years of alienation and sorrow. And other thoughts pressed down upon me. By and by, when we were all united in that world, where we should know even as we are known, Ernest would read my heart, by the light of eternity, and then he would know how I loved him. There would be no more suspicion, or jealousy, or estrangement, but perfect love and perfect joy would absorb the memory of sorrow.

"And you are married, my Gabriella?" were the first words my father said, when he again turned towards me. "How difficult to realize; and you looking so very young. Young as you really are, you cheat the eye of several years of youth!"

"I was very ill, and when I woke to consciousness, I found myself shorn of the glory of womanhood,—my long hair."

"You are so like my Rosalie. Your face, your eyes, your smile; and I feel that you have her pure and loving heart. Heaven preserve it from the blight that fell on hers!"

The smile faded from my lip, and a quick sigh that I could not repress saddened its expression. The eyes of my father were bent anxiously on me.

"I long to see the husband of my child," said he. "Is he not with you?"

"No, my father, he is far away. Do not speak of him now, I can only think of you."

"If he is faithless to a charge so dear," exclaimed St. James, with a kindling glance.

"Nay, father; but I have so much to tell, so much to hear, my brain is dizzy with the thought. You shall have all my confidence, believe me you shall; and oh, how sweet it is to think that I have a father's breast to lean upon, a father's arms to shelter me, though the storms of life may blow cold and dreary round me,—and such a father!—after feeling such anguish and shame from my supposed parentage. Poor Richard! how I pity him!"

"You love him, then? Believing him your brother, you have loved him as such?"

"I could not love him better were he indeed my brother. He was the friend of my childhood," and a crimson hue stole over my face at the remembrance of a love more passionate than a brother's. "He is gifted with every good and noble quality, every pure and generous feeling,—friend, brother, cousin—it matters not which—he will ever be the same to me."

Then I spoke of Mrs. Linwood, my adopted mother,—of my incalculable obligations, my unutterable gratitude, love, and admiration,—of the lovely Edith and her sisterly affection, and I told him how I longed that he should see them, and that they should know that I had a father, whom I was proud to acknowledge, instead of one who reflected disgrace even on them.

"Oh! I have so much to tell, so much to hear," I again repeated. "I know not when or where we shall begin. It is so bewildering, so strange, so like a dream. I fear to let go your hand lest you vanish from my sight and I lose you forever."

"Ah, my child, you cannot feel as I do. You have enshrined other images in your heart, but mine is a lonely temple, into which you come as a divinity to be worshipped, as well as a daughter to be loved. I did not expect such implicit faith, such undoubting confidence. I feared you would shrink from a stranger, and require proofs of the truth of his assertions. I dared not hope for a greeting so tender, a trust so spontaneous."

"Oh! I should as soon doubt that God was my Father in heaven, as you my father on earth. I know it, I do not believe it."

I think my feelings must have been something like a blind person's on first emerging from the darkness that has wrapped him from his birth. He does not ask, when the sunbeams fall on his unclouded vision, if it be light. He knows it is, because it fills his new-born capacities for sight,—he knows it is, by the shadows that roll from before it. I knew it was my father, because he met all the wants of my yearning filial nature, because I felt him worthy of honor, admiration, reverence, and love.

I know not how long I had been with him, when Mr. Brahan entered; and though it had been seventeen years since he had seen him, he immediately recognized the artist he had so much admired.

"I have found a daughter, sir," said St. James, grasping his hand with fervor. He could not add another word, and no other was necessary.

"I told her so," cried Mr. Brahan, after expressing the warmest congratulations; "I told her husband so. I knew the wretch who assumes your name was an impostor, though he wonderfully resembles yourself."

"He has a right to the name he bears," answered my father, and his countenance clouded as it always did when he alluded to his brother. "We are twin brothers, and our extraordinary resemblance in youth and early manhood caused mistakes as numerous as those recorded in the Comedy of Errors, and laid the foundation of a tragedy seldom found in the experience of life."

While they were conversing, I stole from the room and ran up stairs to tell Mrs. Brahan the wondrous tidings. Her sympathy was as heart-felt as I expected,—her surprise less. She never could believe that man my father. Mr. Brahan always said he was an impostor, only he had no means to prove it.

"How beautiful!" she said, her eyes glistening with sympathetic emotion, "that he should find you here, in his own wedded home,—the place of your birth,—the spot sanctified by the holiest memories of love. Has not your filial mission been blest? Has not Providence led you by a way you little dreamed of? My dear Gabriella, you must not indulge another sad misgiving or gloomy fear. Indeed you must not."

"I know I ought not; but come and see my father."

"What is he like?" she asked, with a smile.

"Like the dream of my childhood, when I imagined him one of the sons of God, such as once came down to earth."

"Romantic child!" she exclaimed; but when she saw my father, I read admiration as well as respect in her speaking eye, and I was satisfied with the impression he had made.

Richard came soon after informed by his father of all I could tell him and a great deal more, which he subsequently related to me. I think he was happier to know that he was cousin, than when he believed himself my brother. The transition from a lover to a brother was too painful. He could not divest himself of the idea of guilt, which, however involuntary, made him shudder in remembrance. But a cousin! The tenderness of natural affection and the memories of love, might unite in a bond so near and dear, and hallow each other.

In the joy of my emancipation from imagined disgrace, I did not forget that the cloud still rested darkly on him,—that he still groaned under the burden which had been lifted from my soul. He told me that he had hope of his father's ultimate regeneration,—that he had found him much softened,—that he wept at the sight of TherÉsa's Bible, and still more when he read aloud to him the chapters which gave most consolation to her dying hours.

The unexpected visit of his brother, from whom he had been so long separated, and whom he supposed was dead, had stirred still deeper the abysses of memoir and feeling.

I will now turn a little while from myself, and give a brief history of the twin brothers, as I learned it from my father's lips, and Richard's, who narrated to me the story of his father's life as he heard it in the dungeon of the Tombs.