"Ill-looking, and my papa lame!" thought I. It was with difficulty the nurse could prevail on me to obey the summons; and I behaved so ill when I got to their bedside, that they were glad to send me away. It was impossible that I could know either of them, they were really so pale and haggard through fatigue and suffering; and I shrunk frightened and averse from their embraces. True, the name of mother was associated in my mind with all that I best loved, for by that name I called Lady Helen. But why did I so? Because she had been to me the tenderest of guardians, and had fulfilled the duty which my real parent had been forced to resign. On returning to the nursery, I found Lady Helen, to whom I clung in an agony of tears, satisfied that _she_ was my _own dear mamma_. But when my father and mother were seated at the breakfast-table, and gave me some of the nice things set before them, I became less averse to their caresses, and before the day was over, I consented to have one papa and two mammas, while Seymour assured me he thought my papa, though _ill_, very handsome, and like his own poor papa. At first, Lady Helen shrunk from the idea of returning to England; but she at length consented, from consideration of the superior advantages which her two young charges would receive from an English education, and as it was evidently in conformity to her brother's intention. Accordingly, in the beginning of the year 1779, we arrived at Liverpool, bringing with us the bodies of Colonel Seymour and George Pendarves. Well was it for Lady Helen that we reached the inn at Liverpool at night, and that she had some hours of refreshing slumber, to prepare her for the surprise which awaited her the next day. While she and my parents were at breakfast the following morning, and Seymour and I were amusing ourselves with looking out at the window, we saw a very elegant carriage drive up to the door: our exclamations called Lady Helen to us. "What are those pretty things painted on the sides, mamma?" asked Seymour. "An earl's coronet, and supporters to the arms, my dear!" repeated Lady Helen in a faint voice, and suddenly retreating, as she saw there were gentlemen in the carriage, who looked up, on hearing the children's voices. It was her father's. Nor had time, suffering, and sickness so altered her beautiful features as to render them irrecognizable by a father's heart. Catching the arm of Lord Mountgeorge, his son, who was with him, Lord Seymour exclaimed-- "O Frederic! surely I have beheld your sister!" and with trembling limbs he alighted, and reached the rooms bespoken for him. He was on his way from London to the seat of a gentleman near Liverpool, from whose house he was to proceed to his own place in the North.