"And the clergyman by whom I was baptized is also alive," cried Paul, "and has never lost sight of me He was, in part, in the confidence of my mother' family, and even after I was adopted by Mr. Powis he kept me in view as one of his little Christians as he termed me. It was no less a person than Dr.----." "This alone would make out the connection and identity," said Mr. Effingham, "without the aid of the Monday witnesses. The whole obscurity has arisen from John's change of name, and his ignorance of the fact that his wife had a child. The Ducies appear to have had plausible reasons, too, for distrusting the legality of the marriage; but all is now clear, and as a large estate is concerned, we will take care that no further obscurity shall rest over the affair." "The part connected with the estate is already secured," said John Effingham, looking at Eve with a smile. "An American can always make a will, and one that contains but a single bequest is soon written. Mine is executed, and Paul Effingham, my son by my marriage with Mildred Warrender, and lately known in the United States' Navy as Paul Powis, is duly declared my heir. This will suffice for all legal purposes, though we shall have large draughts of gossip to swallow." "Cousin Jack!" "Daughter Eve!" "Who has given cause for it?" "He who commenced one of the most sacred of his earthly duties, with an unjustifiable deception. The wisest way to meet it, will be to make our avowals of the relationship as open as possible." "I see no necessity, John, of entering into details," said Mr. Effingham; "you were married young, and lost your wife within a year of your marriage. She was a Miss Warrender, and the sister of Lady Dunluce; Paul and Ducie are declared cousins, and the former proves to be your son, of whose existence you were ignorant. No one will presume to question any of us, and it really strikes me that all rational people ought to be satisfied with this simple account of the matter." "Father!" exclaimed Eve, with her pretty little hands raised in the attitude of surprise, "in what capital even, in what part of the world, would such a naked account appease curiosity? Much less will it suffice here, where every human being, gentle or simple, learned or ignorant, refined or vulgar, fancies himself a constitutional judge of all the acts of all his fellow-creatures?" "We have at least the consolation of knowing that no revelations will make the matter any worse, or any better," said Paul, "as the gossips would tell their own tale, in every case, though its falsehood were as apparent as the noon-day sun. A gossip is essentially a liar, and truth is the last ingredient that is deemed necessary to his other qualifications; indeed, a well authenticated fact is a death-blow to a gossip. I hope, my dear sir, you will say no more than that I am your son, a circumstance much too precious to me to be omitted."