She looks mechanically.
"Yes, it is grand, but—but what did you say about the child of Senator Winans?"
"Ah, yes, I was going to tell you, I had not forgotten," he smiled. "Why, it seems that his wife was in the city, and he called on her last evening at the hotel where she is stopping—he told me, poor fellow, in confidence that they parted more bitterly alienated than before. I blame him, though, the most. I know his hot temper, you see, Miss Lulu—and he desired her to send the child and nurse around to his hotel this morning, that he might see as much as possible of the child before she returned to Norfolk, as she designed doing to-day."
"Well?" she breathes eagerly.
She is twisting the wayward ringlet round and round one taper finger and listening with absorbing interest as he goes on.
"Well, Norah O'Neil, the nurse, took the child very punctually to its father at ten o'clock this morning. He received them in his private parlor that opened on a long handsome hall, where similar parlors opened in a similar manner. And—but this cannot be interesting to you, Miss Clendenon, since you do not know the parties."
"On the contrary, I am deeply interested," she said. "Go on if you please."
"Well, it seems that Winans kept the little thing so long with him that it began to grow hungry and fretful. Winans suggested that Norah, the nurse, you know, should go down to the lower regions of the hotel and bring up some warm milk and crackers for the hungry child. She went, attended by a waiter Winans summoned for the purpose, and remained some time—ah! Miss Clendenon, here we are on Prospect Hill with a charming sea-view before us—and there—you see that romantic-looking cottage not a stone's throw from us—that is the home of the well-known novelist, Mrs. Southworth."
"Ah!" she said, brightly, turning a look of deep interest at the spot. "But about the child—what happened while the nurse was gone?"
"In a moment, Miss Lulu," touching whip to the prancing iron-gray ponies and setting them off at a dashing rate. "Yes, as I was saying, Winans played with the child that kept fretting for Norah and the milk, and I dare say he grew tired of playing the nurse—I should in his place, I know—and thought of taking a comfortable smoke. He left the baby sitting on a divan, stopped into his dressing-room, selected a good weed, lighted it, and stepped back again."