‘Mother! mother!’ I cried, in frantic tones, ‘if I may still call you by that dear name;—oh, pardon your imprudent, but not guilty daughter!’ I could say no more, but sank at her feet. A pause of several moments ensued! my mother being too much overpowered by her emotions to speak; but at length, in a voice choked with agony, she exclaimed:— ‘Wretched girl! dare you again to approach that home, those parents whose hearts you have rendered desolate? Guilty, miserable girl—’ ‘Oh, no, no,’ I interrupted hastily, ‘imprudent, cruel, I have been, dear mother, but your child returns to you as pure as when she left you. I appeal to heaven to attest my innocence. Oh, my mother, pardon the poor prodigal, who erred alone through youth and inexperience, and who is now ready to make all the atonement in her power.’ ‘Can this be true? Have you indeed not endeavored to deceive me?’ ejaculated my mother, eagerly, and her eyes beaming, fixed with a penetrating glance upon my countenance, as though she would read all that was passing in my soul. ‘But no, it is impossible. How can you be innocent, uncontaminated? did you not abandon your home, your parents, and throw yourself into the arms of a villain, who—’ ‘Oh, mother, believe it not,’ I returned, with the tears at the same time streaming down my cheeks. ‘I acknowledge that by the most base and subtle means, and in a moment of thoughtlessness and imprudence, Mansville got me into his power, and bore me far away from my home. But I thought that he meant to act honorably towards me. He told me he would make me his bride. I was too ready to believe him, and day after day he made some plausible excuse to postpone the fulfilment of his promise. Think not, however, that I suffered nothing. That you were ever absent from my thoughts, or that the fondly cherished recollections of my home, that home I had quitted, ceased to torture my mind. Bitter, indeed, were the pangs I endured. Ofttimes would I have fled the place and returned hither, but I dreaded to meet the reproaches of my parents. When, however, Mansville threw aside the mask, I overcame that dread, and your unhappy daughter has come back to solicit your forgiveness, with her virtue as unsullied as when she left you.’ During the time I was speaking, the agony evinced by my mother needs no description, and when I had ceased, in a paroxysm of delirious transport, she snatched me from the earth and enfolded me in her arms, exclaiming— ‘My child—my long lost Clara! Yes, I do indeed believe you, and pardon you, Oh, this is a happiness that I never expected!’ ‘Mother, dear mother!’ I cried, in a tone of gratitude and delight which I cannot adequately describe, ‘to be suffered once more to speak to you in this place—to hear those blest words—to know myself pardoned. My heart is so full. Thus, thus only can I thank you.’ Again I threw my arms around her neck, and pressing vehemently to her bosom, she wept tears of joy.