"'John Hamilton,' aunt; and wasn't it funny? He said he didn't know much, but he liked to remember people that were good to him."
"He looked as if there were something peculiar about him," said Aunt Julia. "I wonder whether he can be Mrs. John Hamilton's son. I heard she left a boy who was quite deficient in mind and body."
"He said his mother was dead, and that Mrs. Franklin took care of him. Did you notice how dull his eyes were, aunt, as if there were a veil over them?"
"I did not like to look very closely at him," answered Miss Julia. "It is not kind to seem to stare at a person who is unfortunate in any way. See what a pretty pony that little girl is driving! I must have you learn to drive when you come home again."
"Oh, I know how," said Amity. "Old Deacon Bradshaw taught me; and he used to lend me his old white horse and the buckboard to take mamma out riding."
Miss Julia began to talk of something else. She did not like to think of the time when her sister-in-law was teaching a little school in Vermont, to support her worse than useless husband and her only child.
A month later Amity was standing in the long drawing-room at Congress Hall, in Saratoga. She had had, as she said, "a lovely time" in the mountains with her grandfather. They had come to Saratoga by the way of Lake George, and they were now expecting Miss Julia, who was coming from Long Branch to meet her father, and spend some time at the springs. Amity was very much tanned, which did not improve her beauty; but still she looked much better than when we saw her first. The sad, downcast look was gone from her face; she held up her head; and the little pulleys in the corners of her mouth had drawn it into quite a different shape.
So when people said of her, "What a very homely child!" they usually added, "but she has a pleasant face, after all."
Amity had been in the great hotel only two or three days, but she had made several acquaintances among the little girls, and to two or three of these she was now talking.
"Did you hear Johnny Hamilton cry last night?" said one of the girls, Emma Fairchild by name. "Poor little fellow, how he did scream!"