"They're the young ladies from the Crags, mother," said the girl soothingly.
"I know that, Sally," she answered peevishly, "but one's a visitor, and the other one called her Elsie, she's just the age and very image of—child, what is your family name?"
"Travilla, madam," the little girl replied, with a look of surprise.
"Oh, you're her daughter; yes, of course I might have known it. And so she married him, her father's friend and so many years older."
The words were spoken as if to herself and she finished with a deep drawn sigh.
This woman had loved Travilla—all unsuspected by him, for he was not a conceited man—and there had been a time when she would have almost given her hopes of heaven for a return of her affection.
"Is it my mother you mean? did you know her when she was a little girl?" asked Elsie, rising and drawing near the woman's chair.
"Yes; if she was Elsie Dinsmore, and lived at Roselands—how many years ago? let me see; it was a good many; long before I was married to John Gibson."
"That was mamma's name and that was where she lived; with her grandpa, while her papa was away in Europe so many years," returned the little Elsie; then asked with eager interest, "But how did you happen to know her? did you live near Roselands?"
"I lived there; but I was a person of no consequence; only a poor governess," remarked the woman in a bitter tone; an expression of angry discontent settling down upon her features.