"Who are you, child, with that voice and face from the haunting past? What is your name?"
"I am Geraldine Harding!"
"Geraldine Harding! Oh, Heaven!" springing to her feet in strange excitement, her blue eyes glittering through their tears.
Geraldine did not know what to make of her strange excitement, so she waited, mutely, while the lady went on, breathlessly:
"Where did you live?—oh, I mean, tell me all about yourself! Oh, I am in such trouble that I cannot express myself clearly! I mean no impertinence, but I am terribly interested in you and in your past."
"There is not much in my past that could interest you, dear madame—only the simple story of a poor country girl who came to New York, with another girl, to earn her own living," Geraldine said, modestly.
"So young, so lovely! Yet thrown on the world to earn her bread!" murmured the lady, tearfully. She caught the girl's hand, holding it tightly as she continued: "Your parents, dear? Why did they let you leave them?"
"I was an orphan, madame."
"An orphan! Where was your home?"
"I lived in the country near New York, with a farmer, to whom my father took me when I was a delicate child. The farmer's name was Newell, and his wife, Malinda, had formerly been a servant to my mother. She gave me tender, motherly care, and raised me from a frail child to a robust girl. My father sent money for a while, then he died, and left me dependent on those people. They were poor and had a hard struggle to get along with their large brood of children, so I—I—wearied of the life, and ran away to seek my fortune in the great city."