Cora was embarrassed and did not know what to say. She was pleased with the way that Walter addressed his supposed Amy. Why don’t you speak? Do not let pride, place or circumstances influence you. The time has been so great, perhaps destiny and circumstances have changed your course, but not your affections. I will swear by the Gods that you still love me. Oh, said Cora, I wish I was your Amy. I wish these caresses were meant for me. I wish that I could honestly continue to be encircled within your manly arms. But no. It cannot be. This affection is meant for another—not for me. I am not Amy, I am your aunt, and here by your side stands your uncle, Lieutenant Charles Powers. Walter fell back on his bed. So near, yet so far, he exclaimed. Leave me alone to commune with my own thoughts. The Lieutenant took his hand and said: Don’t be cast down, my nephew; It is always the darkest before day. The light in your horizon has begun to appear. It will illuminate your whole soul. Such love cannot go unrewarded. You will yet find your Amy. In the morning you will be stronger, and will then learn the history of your family. The next morning Walter was so much improved that he went on deck, and then to the room of Lieutenant Powers, where he learned the history of his family, of which the reader is already apprised. Really Walter, continued the Lieutenant, I am ashamed to relate the cause that led to the estrangement between the Wallace and Powers families. It was very trivial—in fact no cause at all. Your father, William and my brother Thomas were two stripling boys, and each of them owned a game rooster, and each thought his rooster the smartest. A cock fight was agreed upon and the fathers of both sides invited to be present. The day arrives, the families meet to see the sport, and the cocks go at each other with vengeance and soon there is a dead cock in the pit. The owner of the dead cock kicks at the victorious rooster. Then the boys clinch, the old gentlemen get mad and interfere, and the result is eternal enmity between the families so far as the fathers were concerned. Each forbid their children to visit or hold any intercourse with each other. And to this day the two fathers hold to their resentment. Twenty-five years have passed, and during all that time they have not spoken together or allowed their children, so far as they could prevent it. Not so with the children of these mad parents. Your father and Thomas soon became friends again, and often met and played together. Long before this estrangement, your mother and father were friends, and in their juvenile days, pledged to each other their love with their parents’ consent. And the same was the case between my brother Thomas and Amelia Wallace. As they grew up, they refused to break their engagement, and were married. For this they were disinherited and driven from their parental roofs. A few friends assisted them and they embarked for America. You know the rest.