“If—if you go out early, Miss, don’t forget to come here for your coffee,” he said. “Or more, if you please. I shall be happy to serve you.”
“And I’m happy to have you,” returned the girl, heartily.
She could not assume to him the rude tone and manner which she had displayed to her uncle and cousins. That had been the outcome of an impulse which had risen from the unkind expressions she had heard them use about her.
As soon as she could get away, she had ceased being an eavesdropper. But she had heard enough to assure her that her relatives were not glad to see her; that they were rude and unkind, and that they were disturbed by her presence among them.
But there was another thing she had drawn from their ill-advised talk, too. She had heard her father mentioned in no kind way. Hints were thrown out that Prince Morrell’s crime—or the crime of which he had been accused—was still remembered in New York.
Back into her soul had come that wave of feeling she experienced after her father’s death. He had been so troubled by the smirch upon his name—the cloud that had blighted his young manhood in the great city.
“I’ll know the truth,” she thought again. “I’ll find out who was guilty. They sha’n’t drive me away until I have accomplished my object in coming East.”
This was the only thought she had while she remained under old Lawdor’s eye. She had to bear up, and seem unruffled until the breakfast was disposed of and she could escape upstairs.
She went up the servants’ way. She saw the same girl she had noticed in the parlor early in the morning.
“Can you show me my room?” she asked her, timidly.