“My own sweet darling Flo’, cease to regard me with such anxious eyes. I am not mad!--in very truth my child, I am not. My sorrows have sorely tried me, but heaven has been withal kind, and has spared me my reason. You do not know the source of my present joy, as you know not the occasion of my fall from a position, the pleasures and luxuries of which you were too young to appreciate, and which were snatched from you ere you were old enough to regret or comprehend them.” “And yet, dear father, whenever I see a handsome mansion, filled with splendid furniture, magnificent pictures, beautiful sculpture, standing in the midst of gay parterres, over which wave graceful trees, I seem to go back to a time when I lived in such scenes. I have fancied that I have dreamed of these lovely places in childhood; and when I have in later days come to see them, I have believed that my dreams only have recurred to me.” “No dreams, my Flo’, but a real mansion, with its luxurious apartments, its galleries of pictures, sculptures, and articles of _vertu_ rare and costly, its terraced gardens, its stately trees, its glassy streams and lakes, its tall fountains, and its gorgeous woodlands. No dream, my Flo’; for in such a scene you were born. In such a scene you shall reign, queen of beauty, ere you are much older. My Flo’, no dream, but reality.” He clutched her by the wrist. “The dream has been from the hour when that splendour, at one remorseless, dreadful swoop, was torn from my grasp up to the moment of Mires’ appearance here to-day. That fearful interval has been the dark, horrible, terrible dream; but, my Flo’, the shadows of the night are passing from us, the fragrance of the morning air is in my nostrils, the golden dawn has begun to light up our too long darkened hemisphere, and we shall yet revel in the refulgent beams of an unclouded sunshine.” He pressed her again and again to his bosom, and kissed her with passionate fondness, while large tears rolled down his yet pallid cheeks. While yet caressing her, and as Hal was preparing to ask him to give him some proof that what he had just previously asserted was no mere hallucination, a faint knock was heard at the room door. Before Wilton could clear his voice to give the permission to enter the room, the door opened and closed instantly. But rapid as was the action, the door on closing had left within the room Nathan Gomer. He nodded at Wilton, he nodded at Hal, and he smiled--that is, grinned--at Flora. All the while his face glowed like burnished gold upon which a sunbeam rested. Wilton uttered a cry of joy. He ran up to him, and seized him by the hand. “I wanted to see you,” he cried. “I imagined as much. Here I am,” responded Nathan. Old Wilton cast his eyes rapidly upon Flora, upon Hal, and then on Nathan Gomer. For an instant he appeared perplexed, then he said to Hal--