'Well, but what is your name?'
A crimson of the deepest hue forced its way through her dark complexion: her very eyes reddened with blushes, as she faintly answered, 'I cannot tell my name!'
She turned suddenly away, with a look that seemed to expect resentment, and anticipate being abandoned.
Elinor, however, only laughed, but laughed 'in such a sort' as proclaimed triumph over Harleigh, and contempt for the stranger.
Harleigh drew Elinor apart, saying, 'Can this, really, appear to you so ridiculous?'
'And can you, really, Harleigh, be allured by so glaring an adventurer? a Wanderer,—without even a name!'
'She is not, at least, without probity, since she prefers any risk, and any suspicion, to falsehood. How easily, otherwise, might she assume any appellation that she pleased!'
'You are certainly bewitched, Harleigh!'
'You are certainly mistaken, Elinor! yet I cannot desert her, till I am convinced that she does not merit to be protected.'
Elinor returned to the stranger. 'You do not chuse, then, to have your place secured?'