“That he found you in the frozen cabin of those Vermonters up among the Rockies? Your father and mother had died from cold and hunger, and he found you just in time?”
“Yes, that was it.”
He hesitated a moment; and then he added honestly:
“It must have been so; but I have never found a man who knew anything about the cabin, or those Vermonters. Well, it made no difference—so long as you took me.”
“No, it made no matter to me. I said so then when you asked me to marry you.” She waited a moment before adding, “And I say so now. Nothing can make it any different!”
“Bless you for that!”
But she quickly parted from his kiss.
“Tell me about old Oscar. He was rough and bad at times, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, rough,—not bad—a fierce customer, a regular Berserker, when he was taken that way,—when he was drunk or in a bad humor. But I don’t want to think of that—he was so good to me, brought me up, gave me my education, taught me my profession himself, and put me in the way of having a happy life. It isn’t right to remember his bad side.”
“What do you mean? You never told me he was bad. I thought you meant he was rough and uneducated—that he made his way without a cent from the time he landed in New York. What else do you mean? Was he a bad man? Was he wicked?”