"About this girl, now?" he queried.
"She's the dearest, sweetest, simplest body, not foolish, not sentimental, but like water in a ground glass globe, if you can understand. She's one of the old settlers, and that's laughable, came in '51, round the Horn, from Maine, I believe, with an uncle and some friends. He is a Mr. Chadsey, and keeps a big warehouse, shipping stores and what not, and is, I believe, making a fortune—to take her journeying round the world."
"Chadsey," he said thoughtfully. "Chadsey. What is the girl's name?"
"Oh, Chadsey, too."
"Ah!" nodding, yet he drew his brows a little.
"I suppose he was her mother's brother. Her mother died just before they came out here."
He made a brief calculation. "Yes, it was in '51 that she died. And Jason Chadsey was there, he took the little girl away. At Boston all trace was lost, though he had not searched very exhaustively for her. He had a feeling that she would be well cared for."
David Westbury glanced at his wife. Her elbow was on the window sill and her cheek rested on her hand. There was a touch of sadness in her face, a longing in her eyes. He loved her more now than when he had married her. She was a little exacting then. She had been very fond of pleasure, theatres, balls, fine dinners at hotels, journeys, dress, jewels. He enjoyed them, too, with the zest that generally comes to one who has been deprived of them in early life, and whose training has been to consider them reprehensible.
They had taken their fill. Now his mind was all on business; he liked to surmount difficulties, to bring success out of chaos. He had to leave her alone a good deal. She used to find entertainment in conquering the admiration of young men, but these last few years she had found herself less attractive, except as she listened to their love troubles and begged her for advice. He did not understand this at all, only he felt he had an engrossing business and she had nothing but looking on.
"You like this girl very much?"