When we drew round the fire, for the evenings were chilly, they laid
their whole history open to us. What a tale it was! and what a telling of
it! My own uncle, Edward, was the principal narrator, but was
occasionally helped out by my newer uncle, Edmund. I had the story
already, my reader will remember, in my uncle's writing, at home: when we
returned I read it--not with the same absorption as if it had come first,
but with as much interest, and certainly with the more thorough
comprehension that I had listened to it before. That same written story I
shall presently give, supplemented by what, necessarily, my uncle Edmund
had to supply, and with some elucidation from the spoken narrative of my
uncle Edward.
As the story proceeded, overcome with the horror of the revelation I
foresaw, I forgot myself, and cried out--
"And that woman is John's mother!"
"Whose mother?" asked uncle Edmund, with scornful curiosity.
"John Day's," I answered.
"It cannot be!" he cried, blazing up. "Are you sure of it?"
"I have always been given so to understand," replied John for me; "but I
am by no means sure of it. I have doubted it a thousand times."
"No wonder! Then we may go on! But, indeed, to believe you her son, would
be to doubt you! I _don't_ believe it."
"You could not help doubting me!" responded John. "--I might be true,
though, even if I were her son!" he added.
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