“Yes,” she answered rather hurriedly, fearful lest he should ask her if her father had not spoken of him, “so Mrs. Willers said. It must have been a long time ago. Was I there?” she added with a little smile.
He was taken aback by the question and said, stammeringly:
“Well, really now, I—I—don’t quite remember.”
“I guess I wasn’t,” she said laughing. “You must have known father before that. He came over in forty-nine, you know. I was born twenty-four years ago up in the mountains, in Eldorado County, in a little cabin miles above Placerville. Mother’s often described the place to me. They left soon after.”
He lowered his eyes. He was a man of no sentiment or tenderness, yet something in this false statement, uttered so innocently by these fresh young lips, and taught with all the solicitude of love to this simple nature, pierced like an arrow to the live spot in his deadened conscience.
“It was more than twenty-five years ago that I was there,” he said. “You evidently were not born then.”
“But my mother was there then. Do you think I look like her? My father thought I was wonderfully like her.”
He looked into the candid face. Memories of Lucy before his own harsh treatment and the hardships of her life had broken her, stirred in him.
“Yes,” he said slowly, “you’re very like her. But you’re like your father, too.”
“Am I?” she cried, evidently delighted. “Do you really think so? I do want to look like my father.”