When she went to school the teacher, a newcomer in Waltonville, asked her her father's name and she had stood bewildered.
"Her father is dead, I guess," said the little girl next to her.
Eleanor nodded solemnly. A day or two later, when the teacher's question came to her mind again, she repeated it to her mother. Mrs. Bent, whose experience had not prepared her for the questions of a first day in school, stared at her daughter.
"The teacher asked me, and a little girl said she guessed he was dead, and so I said he was dead. Was that right, mother?"
Mrs. Bent's face grew deathly pale, so that long afterwards the incident came back to Eleanor.
"Yes, that was right," said she.
Another problem suggested itself.
"Were we ever away from here?"
"Why do you ask that?"
"Because that man said, 'So you've come back.'"