s white, standing looking at her very keenly with
clear, light-blue eyes under a high, pale forehead, from which the
gray hair was combed uncompromisingly back. The woman had been a
beauty once, of a delicate, nervous type, and had a certain beauty
now, a something which had endured like the fineness of texture of a
web when its glow of color has faded. Her black garments draped her
with sober richness, and there was a gleam of dark fur when the wind
caught her cloak. A small tuft of ostrich plumes nodded from her
bonnet. Ellen smelt flowers vaguely, and looked at the lady's hand,
but she did not carry any.

"Whose little girl are you?" Cynthia Lennox asked, softly, and Ellen
did not answer. "Can't you tell me whose little girl you are?"
Cynthia Lennox asked again. Ellen did not speak, but there was the
swift flicker of a thought over her face which told her name as
plainly as language if the woman had possessed the skill to
interpret it.

"Ellen Brewster--Ellen Brewster is my name," Ellen said to herself
very hard, and that was how she endured the reproach of her own
silence.

The woman looked at her with surprise and admiration that were
fairly passionate. Ellen was a beautiful child, with a face like a
white flower. People had always turned to look after her, she was so
charming, and had caused her mothers heart to swell with pride. "The
way everybody we met has stared after that child to-day!" she would
whisper her husband when she brought Ellen home from some little
expedition; then the two would look at the little one's face with
the one holy vanity of the world. Ellen wore to-night the little
white shawl which her father had caught up when he carried her over
to her grandmother's. She held it tightly together under her chin
with one tiny hand, and her face looked out from between the soft
folds with the absolute purity of curve and color of a pearl.

"Oh, you darling!" said the woman, suddenly; "you darling!" and
Ellen shrank away from her. "Don't be afraid, dear," said Cynthia
Lennox. "Don't be afraid, only tell me who you are. What is your
name, dear?" But Ellen remained silent; only, as she shrank aloof,
her eyes grew wild and bright with startled tears, and her sweet
baby mouth quivered piteously. She wanted to run, but the habit of
obedience was so strong upon her little mind that she feared to do
so. This strange woman seemed to have gotten her in some invisible
leash.

"Tell me what your name is,