"And can you still trust me to be good to you, and true to your best interests?"
"Oh, yes, yes, yes! dear grandma!"
"Then, my own little one, trust me, by obeying me, when I tell you to ask me no questions about yourself; because I cannot answer them yet a while. Will you do so, my little Gem?"
"Yes, yes, I will! I will! But, dear granny, I know! I know! although you are too tender to tell me, I know!"
"Know—what, Gem?" questioned Mrs. Winterose, in alarm.
"I know that some mystery and horror hung over my birth—hangs over my life! I have known this a long time. They call me 'Ingemisca;' that means, 'Bewail! Bewail!' Some one bewailed my birth, and bade me bewail it! Some one sung the refrain of a requiem at my baptism, as they do at the burial of others! And oh, grandma! to-night! to-night! in what has reached my ears, I have found a clue to the solving of my mystery!"
"Gem! Gem! if ever I have been kind to you, mind me now! Never think, never speak of these things again. Look on yourself as my child, and nothing more," urged the old lady with so much earnestness, and even pain, that her pet hastened to caress her, and to say:
"I will mind you as much as I can, best, dearest granny! I will never speak of this again until you give me leave."
"That is my darling girl! And now put away your wheel and come and sit down here, and let us have a pleasant talk after all this solemn nonsense. And when Joe comes in—Where the mischief is that fellow, and why don't he come with the cones, I wonder? Anyhow, when he does come I will send him down in the cellar for some nuts and apples, and we will have a little feast."
Gem sat back her wheel, and came and took her seat on a stool at the old lady's feet.