once Ellen knew.

Ellen replied that she was having a very pleasant vacation, then she
plunged at once into the subject of her call, though with inward
trembling.

"Miss Lennox," said she--and she followed the lines of a little
speech which she had been rehearsing to herself all the way
there--"I am very grateful to you for what you propose doing for me.
It will make a difference to me during my whole life. I cannot begin
to tell you how grateful I am."

"I am very grateful to be allowed to do it," replied Cynthia, with
her unfailing refrain of gentle politeness, but a kindly glance was
in her eyes. Something in the girl's tone touched her. It was
exceedingly earnest, with the simple earnestness of childhood.
Moreover, Ellen was regarding her with great, steadfast, serious
eyes, like a baby's who shrinks and yet will have her will of
information.

"I wanted to say," Ellen continued--and her voice became insensibly
hushed, and she cast a glance around at the house and the leafy
grounds, as if to be sure that no one was within hearing--"that I
should never under any circumstances have said anything regarding
what happened so long ago. That I never have and never should have,
that I never thought of doing such a thing."

Then the elder woman's face flushed a burning red, and she knew at
once what the girl had suspected. "You might proclaim it on the
house-tops if it would please you," she cried out, vehemently. "If
you think--if you think--"

"Oh, I do not!" cried Ellen, in an agony of pleading. "Indeed, I do
not. It was only that--I--feared lest you might think I would be
mean enough to tell."

"I would have told, myself, long ago if there had been only myself
to consider," said Cynthia, still red with anger, and her voice
strained. All at once she seemed to Ellen more like the woman of her
childhood. "Yes, I would," said she, hotly--"I will now."

"Oh, I beg you not!" cried Ellen.

"I will go with you this minute and tell your mother," Cynthia said,
rising.

Ellen sprang up and moved towards her as if to push her back in her
chair. "Oh, please don't!" she cried. "Please don't. You don't know
mother; and it would do no good. It was only because I wondered if
you could have thought I would tell, if I would be so mean."

"And you thought, perhaps, I was bribing you not to tell, with
Vassar College," Cynthia said, suddenly. "Well, you have suspected
me of something which was undeserved."

"I am very sorry,