The words were spoken into the night. The girl did not move her head as the older woman, with a cry, came to her.
"Your birth?" she whispered.
In the darkness Hertha nodded assent.
"Oh, my dear," stroking the soft curly head that was turned from her. "And you didn't know your people?"
"No, I was brought up among strangers."
"They were not kind to you perhaps?"
The head that Mrs. Pickens was stroking turned instantly from her touch and a voice said with a note of anger, "Not kind? They were heavenly kind. They did everything they could for me."
"You must have loved them then?"
"Of course, I loved them. I loved them better than any people in the world."
"Then you have some friends in the South whom you can turn to now, haven't you?"