Helen Ford

He paused a moment to recover himself, and resumed in a different tone, with a look of respectful admiration directed towards Helen.

“As soon as I heard the details of this affair from the lips of your charming daughter, whose filial devotion is, I may observe, the most beautiful trait of her character, I hastened here to assure you of my sympathy and assistance. I think I may promise, that your invaluable machinery will be restored to you before night. I can only express my extreme regret that you have been compelled to suspend your labors, even for the space of a few hours.”

“Thank you for your kindness,” said Mr. Ford, gratefully. “I shall always feel that I am deeply indebted to you for your disinterested friendship.”

“Sir,” said Mr. Sharp, visibly affected, “I would, if it were possible, express how much I am gratified by your words; but there are feelings which must be hidden in the heart, and to which no language can do justice. Let me say, briefly, that such are my feelings on the present occasion. You have been pleased to refer to the little service which it has been in my power to render you. But, sir, you have no cause for gratitude. It is the interest I feel in the advancement of science, to which you have consecrated your life energies. It is my earnest desire to help forward, in my way, the important discovery which is to hand down your name to future generations.”

“If you will excuse me,” said Helen, putting on her bonnet, “I am going out to get something for dinner; and if,” she added, hesitatingly, “Mr. Sharp would do us the favor to sit down with us, papa, I am sure we should be very glad to have him.”

“That is well thought of, Helen,” said her father, approvingly. “I shall be very glad to have Mr. Sharp do so, if he can find sufficient inducement.”

“Sufficient inducement!” echoed the lawyer, with the air of a man who had received an invitation to a royal banquet; “I shall be most proud, most happy, to accept your invitation, and that of your charming daughter. Unworthy as I feel myself of this distinction, I will yet accept it.”

“Unworthy! you, who have to-day shown yourself so truly my friend? It is but a faint expression of our gratitude.”

“You are very kind to say so,” said Mr. Sharp, with an effusion of feeling. “Yet I cannot help feeling that you judge me too favorably. Indeed, were it not that I have a revelation of some importance to make to you, I should scarcely venture to accept your invitation.”

“Be seated, Mr. Sharp,” said Mr. Ford, somewhat surprised at the lawyer’s words; “I shall, of course, feel interested in anything you may have to impart. Helen, my dear, you will not be gone long?”

“No, papa.”

She closed the door, and descended the stairs, with her market-basket on her arm.

CHAPTER XXVII.

HELEN’S BANQUET

When Helen had departed on her errand, Mr. Sharp commenced,—

“You will pardon me,” he said, “if, in the preliminary inquiries I may have to make, there may be anything of a nature to harrow up your feelings, or recall painful scenes.”

Mr. Ford looked surprised.

“May I inquire if you have a father living?”

A painful shadow flitted over the face of Mr. Ford. He answered, presently,—

“You may be surprised when I answer, that I do not know.”

“I am not surprised,” said Mr. Sharp, inclining his head gently. “This was the answer I anticipated.”

Once more Mr. Ford regarded his visitor with a look of surprise.

“Is it possible,” he said, not without hesitation, “that you should know anything of my unhappy history?”

“Of that you shall judge. What if I should say, for example, that the name by which you are known is not your real one?”

“I cannot conjecture where you obtained your information, but it is correct. My real name is not Ford.”

“And is—Rand.”

“You are right; but how–”

“A moment, if you please. I have more to tell you. You were born to wealth, and being an only son, were sole heir to your father’s possessions. You were not, however, without a companion,—a cousin, whom your father generously took under his charge.”

“Lewis?”

“Yes, Lewis Rand; he shared your studies and your sports, and was, in all respects, treated like yourself. The only difference was in your prospects. You were to inherit a large fortune, while he–”

“My father would have provided for him.”

“No doubt, but not equally. That would not have been expected, of course. When Lewis grew old enough to understand this, it filled him with envy and jealousy.”

“Can this be true?” asked Robert Ford—to call him by the name to which we are accustomed,—“can this be true? yet he was always cordial and friendly. His manner never afforded any ground for suspecting that he cherished such feelings.”

“He knew his own interests too well for that. Inferior as his prospects were, they all depended upon your father’s good-will. It would, therefore, have been in the highest degree unwise, to disclose a feeling sure to alienate it.”

“Perhaps you are right,” said Mr. Ford, thoughtfully.

“Therefore, he only nursed this feeling in secret. Yet he none the less watched for an opportunity to injure you. His patience was at length rewarded. That time arrived.”

Robert Ford, as if half surmising what was to follow, rose in some agitation, and began to pace the room.

“I trust,” said Mr. Sharp, “you will excuse me for introducing a delicate subject. There is a time when the susceptible heart of a young man first yields to the tender passion.”

“I understand you,” said Mr. Ford, in a low voice.

“Am I right in saying, that however nobly adorned in other respects, the object of your attachment was not wealthy?”

Mr. Ford bowed his head.

“Unfortunately for your happiness, your father wished you to wed a wealthy wife, and withheld his approbation from your choice. You, my dear sir, with a magnanimity, which, I am sure, does you infinite credit, clung to your chosen bride, portionless though she was, and, in spite of your father’s disapprobation, married her.”

“I did,” said Robert Ford, with emotion; “and however grieved I may have been, and still am, at my father’s continued resentment, that step I never regretted. You have seen Helen. It may have been a parent’s partiality, but I have always regarded her as uncommonly sweet and attractive.”

Mr. Sharp, in a very high-flown eulogium, intimated that such was his own estimate.

“When I tell you,” pursued Mr. Ford, “that Helen bears a very striking resemblance to her mother, not in person only, but in sweetness and amiability, your heart will suggest an excuse for my perhaps unfilial conduct.”

“Sir,” said Mr. Sharp, warmly, “had you done otherwise than you did, had you abandoned, at the bidding of a paltry self-interest, the heart that had learned to love and trust you, I should not have felt one half the respect for you which I now entertain. But, to resume my story. The first difficulty between your father and yourself was hailed with delight by your cousin. It was an occasion for which he had long been watching. It is needless to say, that he used every means to widen the breach, so artfully, however, as not to allow either your father or yourself to suspect his purpose. Possibly you can recall some circumstances which will confirm what I have said.”

“I remember,” said Robert, thoughtfully, “that my cousin professed to sympathize with me most warmly, and counselled me, by all means, to carry out my purpose, in opposition to my father’s will. He assured me that my father would finally yield, when he learned that my heart was unalterably fixed, and that opposition would prove unavailing.”

“At the same time,” said the lawyer, “he was giving similar assurances to your father. He told him, that when you were satisfied that his consent could not be obtained, you would yield the point, and conform to his wishes.”

“Was my cousin indeed so wicked?” asked Robert, with more pain than anger in his tone.

“That was not all. In order to add to your father’s indignation, he took care to describe your betrothed in the most odious colors. He not only charged her with poverty, but represented her as an artful and designing country girl, uneducated and unrefined, whose only object in marrying you was to gratify a vulgar taste for finery and ostentation. In fact, he taxed his imagination to the utmost, in the endeavor to portray her in a manner which he knew would render her most unacceptable to the family pride of your father. I should add that he even denied her the charm of personal beauty, and pictured her to your father as equally unattractive in mind and person.”