“Perhaps you will be more surprised when I tell you that you were named for me.”
Star looked up astonished at him.
“How can that be possible?” she asked.
“In this way,” Mr. Rosevelt returned, a shade of pain crossing his face. “When your grandmother, Stella Winthrop—that was her name before her marriage, was it not?”
“Yes; and that is all I know about her, Uncle Jacob,” Star answered, with a troubled look. “Papa never said much about his friends. Indeed, he did not appear to have any relatives, and never would allow me to question him about them. Once I said something to him about my name, and he remarked: ‘Your grandmother once told me that if ever I had a little girl of my own, she would like me to call her Stella Rosevelt, and that is how you came by it.’
“‘Where is my grandmother, papa?’ I asked.
“‘She is dead,’ he said, and immediately left the room, looking so pale and miserable that I never dared ask him anything more about her.”
“It seems strange that I should be the one to tell you about her,” Mr. Rosevelt said, thoughtfully, “and I am puzzled to know why he should have been so reticent. Did your father ever have any trouble with his family?”
“Not that I know of; and yet,” Star said, flushing, “there was some trouble about his marriage with mamma, though that seems to have been on the part of her family rather than his. Mrs. Richards once twitted me about mamma—who was a sort of cousin to her—having married beneath her.”
“I do not see how that could have been, for the Mr. Gladstone who married Stella Winthrop was a very wealthy and important man in the county of Devonshire—at least, I was told so—and if your father was his son, he might have married almost any one he chose, and have conferred an honor in so doing. But this is not telling you my story.