Think her ill, dying,
dead--any thing but--drunken. He ran to her room-door; but it was
locked--luckily.
Now, Charles--now speedily to business; happy business that, if I may
trust the lover's flushing cheek, and Emily's radiant eyes; but a
mournful one too, and a fearful, if I turn my glance to that poor old
man, wounded in body and stricken in mind--who waits to hear, in more
despondency than hope, what he knows to be the bitter truth--the truth
that must be told, to the misery of those dear children.
Faint and weak though she appeared, Jeanie Mackie's waning life
spirited up for the occasion; her dim eye kindled; her feeble frame was
straight and strong; energy nerved her as she spoke; this hour is the
errand of her being.
Long she spoke, and loudly, in her broad Scotch way; and the general
objected many things, but was answered to them all; and there was close
cross-questioning, slow-caution, keen examination of documents and
letters: catechisms, solecisms, Scottisms; reminiscences rubbed up,
mistakes corrected; and the grand result of all, Emily a Stuart, and the
general not her father! I am only enabled to give a brief account of
that important colloquy.
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