“It is a cruel fate that dooms me to spend my life amid such sad surroundings.”
He answered gently:
“It is not likely you will stay here long. Like all the other pretty girls, you will be sure to marry soon and leave here to be the queen of a happy home.”
His voice trembled with emotion, his eyes were bent on her with wistful tenderness, and little Eva blushed and dimpled exquisitely.
“Why do you think so?” she murmured softly, a smile chasing away her tears.
“You have a lover,” he answered frankly.
She was too ingenuous to deny it, but she said, with a stifled sigh:
“I do not know his name.”
“And yet you love him?”
Little Eva was all one rosy blush now, and she hung her head, faltering: