“Tell me,” he said, after a little, “where did you go—you and your mother?”
“Nowhere.”
“What, was she in the neighborhood?”
“I don’t know.”
“Not—speak, child! not within a few weeks, not since Lady Clare died?”
“I think she is always with me, but the lark fed her young ones when they wanted something to eat, but she never fed me, and I was very, very hungry. Why did she look upon me from the clouds, but never give me one morsel to eat or a drop to drink?”
“Poor child—poor, poor child,” said the old man, kissing me, oh, how tenderly—“try and think—make one effort—I do so want to know the truth—where have you been these many months?”
I tried to think, but it confused me, and at last I answered, with starting tears,
“Indeed, I do not know.”
He bent his face close to mine, and kissed away the tears that stood on my cheeks—then he questioned me again.