“What was your little Marian like, Mr. Horn?” she asked, in a tender and subdued tone.
“Well, she was——” But the ardent girl took him up before he could proceed.
“Would she have grown to be anything like me? I suppose she would be about my age.”
She was leaning forward now, with her elbows on the table, and her hands supporting her chin. Her richly-tinted cheeks glowed with interest; her large, dark eyes shone like two bright stars. The question she had asked could not be to her more than a subject of amiable curiosity; but no doubt the enthusiastic nature of the girl fully accounted for the eagerness with which she had spoken. Her sudden enquiry wafted “Cobbler” Horn back into the past; and there rose before him the vision of a bonny little nut-brown damsel of five summers, with eyes like sloes, and a mass of dusky hair. For an instant he caught his breath. He was startled to see, in the face of his young secretary what he would probably never have detected, if her question had not pointed it out.
“Well, really, Miss Owen,” he said, simply, “now you speak of it, you are something like what my little Marian may have grown to be by this time.”
“How delicious!” exclaimed Miss Owen.
“Cobbler” Horn was gazing intently at his young secretary. What vague surmisings, like shadows on a window-blind—were flitting through his brain? What dim rays of hope were struggling to penetrate the gloom? Suddenly he started, and shook himself, with a sigh. Of course it could only be a fancy. How strange the frequent inability to perceive the significance of circumstances plainly suggestive of the fulfilment of some long-cherished hope! The joy, deferred so long comes, at last, in an hour when we are not aware, only to find us utterly oblivious that it is so near!
“Well, Miss Owen,” said “Cobbler” Horn, rising to his feet, “I must be going to my cobbling. If you want me, you will know where to come.”
“Yes, Mr. Horn.”
She was aware of his custom of resorting now and then to his old workshop. When he was gone, she paused for a moment, with her penholder once more between her lips.