"And have you got a mother?"
"I don't know," faltered the child, and a spot of crimson sprang into her pinched cheek.
"Don't know!"
"Please not to ask me about it," said the child, meekly. "I don't like to talk about my mother."
"But your father," said Mrs. Chester, remarking the color that glowed with such unnatural brightness on the child's face with a thrill of pain, for it seemed to her as if a corpse had blushed.
"My father! Oh, he is dead."
The color instantly went out from her cheek, like a flash of fire suddenly extinguished there, and the child clasped her hands in a sort of thoughtful ecstasy, as if the mention of her father's name had lifted her soul to a communion with the dead.
Mrs. Chester sat down by a bureau, and searched for one of Isabel's night-gowns in the drawer, now and then casting wistful glances on her singular guest.
"Come," she said, gently, after a few minutes had elapsed, "let me take off your frock, then say your prayers and go to bed."
"I have said my prayers," replied the child, lifting her eyes with a look that thrilled through and through Mrs. Chester. "When I think of my father, then I always say the prayers that he taught me, over in my heart."