"I am not his child, thank God! He is my stepfather."
"What is your name, then, besides Huldy?"
The girl blushed deeply and hesitated. Her fine gray eyes were turned upon her beautiful bare feet, white as the river that flashed beneath the window.
"Hulda Bruinton," she said, swallowing a sigh.
"Bruinton—where did I hear that name?" Levin asked; "some tale has been told me, I reckon, about him?"
"Yes, everybody knows it," Hulda said, in a voice of pain; "he was hanged for murder at Georgetown when I was a little child."
Levin could not speak for astonishment.
"I might as well tell you," she said, "for others will, if I conceal it. I can hardly remember my father. My mother soon married Joe and neglected me, and Aunt Patty, my grandmother, brought me up. She was kind to me, but, oh, how cruel she can be to others!"
"You talk as if you kin read, Huldy," said Levin, wishing to change so harsh a topic; "kin you?"
"Yes, I can read and write as well as if I had been to school. Some one taught me the letters around the tavern—some of the negro-dealers: I think it was Colonel McLane; and I had a gift for it, I think, because I began to read very soon, and then Aunt Patty made me read books to her—oh, such dreadful books!"