The miller looked down at her with his strong, ready smile.
“Thank you, Miss Rose,” he said, in his usual cheery tones. “But I do not expect to find Aglaia. For a few years I hoped that she had been stolen by vagrants, and that she still lived; but I have lost that hope. I believe that she was drowned.”
“I can understand,” said Miss Chester, “how the doubt must have made it so hard to bear. And yet you are so cheerful and so ready to make other people’s burdens light. Good Father Abram!”
“Good Miss Rose!” mimicked the miller, smiling. “Who thinks of others more than you do?”
A whimsical mood seemed to strike Miss Chester.
“Oh, Father Abram,” she cried, “wouldn’t it be grand if I should prove to be your daughter? Wouldn’t it be romantic? And wouldn’t you like to have me for a daughter?”
“Indeed, I would,” said the miller, heartily. “If Aglaia had lived I could wish for nothing better than for her to have grown up to be just such a little woman as you are. Maybe you are Aglaia,” he continued, falling in with her playful mood; “can’t you remember when we lived at the mill?”
Miss Chester fell swiftly into serious meditation. Her large eyes were fixed vaguely upon something in the distance. Father Abram was amused at her quick return to seriousness. She sat thus for a long time before she spoke.
“No,” she said at length, with a long sigh, “I can’t remember anything at all about a mill. I don’t think that I ever saw a flour mill in my life until I saw your funny little church. And if I were your little girl I would remember it, wouldn’t I? I’m so sorry, Father Abram.”
“So am I,” said Father Abram, humouring her. “But if you cannot remember that you are my little girl, Miss Rose, surely you can recollect being some one else’s. You remember your own parents, of course.”