"Oh!" The color on Miss Dorothy's face was one pink blush now. Then she laughed lightly. "After all, do you know?—I hardly ever thought of that, after the very first. He called me Miss Stewart, of course—but lots of folks out there do that. They don't think, or don't know, about my name being different, you see. The patients, coming and going all the time, know me as the doctor's daughter, and naturally call me 'Miss Stewart.' So it doesn't seem so queer when Mr. Keith does it."
"Good!" exclaimed Susan with glowing satisfaction. "An' now here's to hopin' he won't never find out who you really be!"
"Is he so very bitter, then, against—Dorothy Parkman?" The girl asked the question a little wistfully.
"He jest is," nodded Susan with unflattering emphasis. "If you'd heard him when he jest persisted that he wouldn't have anybody that was Dorothy Parkman's father even look at his eyes you'd have thought so, I guess. An'—why, he even wrote about it 'way back last Christmas—I mean, when he first told us about you. He said the doctor had a daughter, an' she was all right; but he didn't like her at all at first, 'cause her voice kept remindin' him of somebody he didn't want to be reminded of."
"Did he really write—THAT?"
"Them's the identifyin' words," avowed Susan. "So you'll jest have to keep it secret who you be, you see," she warned her.
"Yes, I—see," murmured the girl. All the pretty color had quite gone from her face now, leaving it a little white and strained-looking. "I'll try—to."
"Of course, when he gets back his sight he'll find out—that is, Miss Dorothy, he IS going to get it back, ain't he?" Susan's own face now had become a little white and strained-looking.
Miss Dorothy shook her head.
"I don't know, Susan; but I'm—afraid."