Six-and-twenty years have gone by since the Leander left the coasts of England never to return; six-and-twenty years since I set foot in my native land." "And did all indeed perish, save yourself?
Were you alone saved?
saw you my brother after the vessel sunk ?" inquired Mrs.Hamilton, hurriedly, laying her trembling hand on the stranger's arm, scarcely conscious of what she did.

"He too might be spared even as yourself; but oh, death were preferable to lingering on his years in slavery." "Alas! my Emmeline, wherefore indulge in such fallacious hope ?" said her husband, tenderly, for he saw she was excessively agitated.
"Mrs.Hamilton," said Sir George Wilmot, earnestly, speaking at the same moment, "Emmeline, child of my best, my earliest friend, look on those features, look well; do you not know them?
six-and-twenty years have done their work, yet surely not sufficiently to conceal him from your eyes.

Have you not seen that flashing eye, that curling lip before?
look well ere you decide." "Lady, Charles Manvers lives!" murmured the stranger, in the voice of one whom strong emotion deprived of utterance, and he pushed from his brow the hair which thickly clustered there and in part concealed the natural expression of his features, and gazed on her face.

A gleam of sunshine at this instant threw a sudden glow upon his countenance, and Mr.Hamilton started forward, and an exclamation of astonishment, of pleasure escaped his lips, but Mrs.Hamilton's eyes moved not from the stranger's face.
"Emmeline, my sister, my own sister, will you not know me?
can you not believe that Charles is spared ?" he exclaimed, in a tone of excited feeling.
"Oh, God, it is Charles himself ?" she sobbed, and sunk almost fainting in his embrace; convulsively the brother pressed her to his bosom.

It seemed as if the happiness of that moment was too great for reality, as if it were but some dream of bliss; scarcely was he conscious of the warm greeting he received; the uncontrollable emotion of the old Admiral, who, as he wrung his hand again and again, wept like a child.
His brain seemed to reel, and every object danced before his eyes, he was alone sensible that he held his sister in his arms, that sister whom he had loved even more devotedly, more constantly in his hours of slavery, than when she had been ever near him.