passing her eye to the portrait beyond, she beheld traits never to be forgotten,—those indelibly imprinted on her filial memory.
"My mother!" she exclaimed; "surely that portrait was designed for my mother!" and she would have sunk to the earth but for the timely support of Mrs. Boville.
The painting which caused her so sudden an emotion was indeed a finished resemblance of her much-loved mother, the loss of whom had been so recent, and whom she was so deeply bewailing, at the time De Brooke made his appearance at her father's parsonage, introduced by letters from an aged officer to the much-esteemed Vicar of Whitby. That aged officer, General Boville, being no other than the brother of her mother, and her uncle; he was also the late husband of Mrs. Boville, who became his second wife shortly after the period that De Brooke left Portugal on his return to England; Mrs. Boville and the General, therefore, were entire strangers to each other.
"Your mother!" exclaimed Mrs. Boville in her turn; "can it be possible that the sister of my late husband bore to you such near relationship?"—throwing her arms round Mrs. De Brooke, who, chasing the tears she had dropped to the memory of her parent, flew to meet the embrace of Mrs. Boville, who, from the kindness of her disposition, felt nearly equal warmth and delight, as if the ties of blood, and not those of marriage merely, in reality entitled her
