"I saw her and was rather attracted to her. She seemed not quite the sort of child you would expect to find in a tenement house. There was a very respectable looking maid with her."
Caroline smiled. She was a bright-faced Swiss woman who had lived with her mistress for nearly thirty years, knew her thoroughly, and loved her devotedly. She was not deceived by the air of indifference with which the lady moved away; she understood that for some reason her mistress wished to find out all she knew about this little girl.
"It isn't what you'd call a tenement house," she said; "the man who owns it has made it into flats. He lives there himself, and has his shop, and Mrs. Bond keeps house for him. It is a real nice place."
"I fail to see the difference," was the reply; "but, Caroline, why did she think I was Mrs. Marvin? She called me so."
"I don't know, Miss Frances, unless it was Emma Bond's mistake. Her mother did some sewing for Mrs. Marvin when she was staying here."
"Well, Caroline, if you see Mrs. Bond you need not say anything about the mistake. You understand? I have a reason for wishing them to think I am Mrs. Marvin, as in fact I am."
"I should like to know what it means," Caroline said to herself as her mistress walked away.
"This is all very melodramatic and absurd, but I must have time to consider," the lady was thinking as she entered her own room, and closed the door behind her. "I must contrive to see her again."
Going to a cabinet, she took from an inner compartment a box, then she had a long search for the key, and after it was found she sat with the box on her lap gazing absently before her.
It was thirteen—almost fourteen years since she had lifted that lid. She had thought never to open it, unless—well, unless the impossible happened, and now a pair of brown eyes had aroused an irresistible longing to look once more on something that lay hidden there. In vain she told herself it was foolish, idle, worse than childish. She recalled the burning anger and resentment with which she had put the box away so long ago. Yes, and had she not just cause? But the touch of those young lips was still fresh upon her own, and whether she would or not, was carrying her back, back to the dear old days.