Sink or Swim? , Volume II

"Don't be frightened, my dear; don't tremble so. You are with a friend, remember that; and with a relation too. Why, child," and the eyes of the still warm-hearted woman brimmed over with the gladdest tears that she had known for years, "you are my grandchild! -- my own, my only granddaughter! God bless you, my poor child; and may you be the joy and pride, instead of the grief and shame, of those who love you!"

Honor was sitting by her newly-found relation (the relation in love though not in law, who had so generously opened to her her arms and heart) on an old black horse-hair sofa, in a little sitting-room adjoining the bed-chamber occupied by Colonel Norcott. The old lady -- already predisposed to like and admire her -- had been greatly struck, not only with the rare beauty, but with a certain shy and shrinking grace characteristic of her son's child. The touch of Honor's small trembling hand, and the kiss of her fresh girlish lips, had warmed Mrs. Baker's heart to her at once. Yearningly, and for a long while prayerfully, had she longed for a child who would, all the days of her life, be unto her as a daughter. Her only child had never, from the days of his boyhood, been as a son to this poor loving mother, who, chancing to be one of the most weak and clinging of the daughters of Eve, could not be content with such poor sympathy as the eminently trustworthy but somewhat stern ex-lawyer was able to bestow.