Perhaps it was Elsie's fondness for children; perhaps it was because he told the story so well; in any event, the girl was touched. And as usual, to cover her feeling, she tried to smile, her dimples rather at variance with the tears in her eyes.
He gazed at her curiously. "Wait, Miss Marley, that isn't all," he exclaimed. "As I recalled the young lady, I saw her face only dimly. Now do you know it suddenly comes to me that she had the largest, deepest dimples I had ever seen, one in either cheek. And I remember vowing then and there, in my youthful enthusiasm, that if ever I attempted to paint Madonna she should have just such dimples; they struck me as somehow significant, perhaps symbolic."
Elsie's heart was beating wildly.
"I wonder—could that have been your mother, Miss Marley?"
The girl could not speak for the tumult within her.
"It seems as if their name began with M, though it couldn't have been Marley, else I should have noticed on account of the song," he went on kindly, realizing her emotion. "May I ask what was your mother's maiden name, Miss Marley?"
Quite upset, Elsie started to tell the truth; said Mi—and stopped short.
"Middleton!" he exclaimed triumphantly.
"Pritchard," she said as quickly as she could get it out.
"Pritchard?" he repeated as if he must have heard wrong.