that young beauty—“Heavens!” I exclaimed, recognising in the object of my admiration my own mother, as she must have appeared in the prime of youth. The frame of the beloved portrait was adorned with fresh sprigs of Forget me Not, and that brilliant species of everlasting Amaranth which our Gallic neighbours aptly enough designate by the splendid name Immortelles. The picture itself appeared to be smiling down upon me with an expression of mingled love and melancholy. Overcome by my emotion I stood before it with my hands crossed upon my breast, while tears flowed down my cheeks: “My mother, my dear, my beloved mother!” I exclaimed in a stifled voice, as I gazed intensely upon her imaged form, and a crowd of early associations rushed upon my mind.
At this moment a door opened, and I turned quickly round to wipe the tears from my eyes and conceal my emotion. But Mrs Waldmark was already in the room, and had begun to excuse her delay, when suddenly checking herself, and looking upon me with a scrutinizing but smiling countenance, she exclaimed: “Nay, Robert, you do not mean to jest with me! My dear Robert, I welcome you a thousand times! Here, before this picture, it is impossible for you to retain your disguise. The features are the same, and it seems to me as if my own dear Joanna now stood in living form before me.”
It was impossible for me to affect concealment any longer; I durst not trifle with the dearest friend of my beloved mother. I seized her hand to raise it to my lips, when overcome by her feelings she pressed me with maternal affection to her bosom, and raising her eyes bathed in tears to the lovely picture, exclaimed: “Joanna, dear Joanna, oh could you now witness us! May thy maternal blessings descend from thine abode of peace upon thy son! Oh why should death have so early torn thee from this joy! Yes,” she continued, turning her eyes again upon me, “’tis her very self,—every feature is my own Joanna’s; and sons who so much resem-
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