"I've not only been there, I was born there."
He looked at her. Miss Roots had always been, to say the least of it, prosaic, and now it was as if poetry had dropped from her lips, as if she had said, "I too was born in Arcadia."
"I suppose," she said, "you saw that beautiful old house by the river?"
"Which beautiful old house by the river?"
"Court House. You see it from the bridge. You must have noticed it."
"Oh, yes, I know the one you mean."
"Did you happen to see or hear anything of the lady who lives in it? Miss Lucia Harden?"
"I—I must have seen her, but I can't exactly say. Do you know her?"
His words seemed to be torn from him in pieces, shaken by the violent beating of his heart.
"Know her?" said Miss Roots. "I lived five years with her. I taught her."