"You can't know such things; you are scarcely sixteen," I insisted.
"My mother was wedded at sixteen; she wedded for love."
After a silence I asked her how she knew that, as she had never seen her mother.
"Sir Peter Warren has told me in his letters," she said, simply. "Besides, you are wrong when you say I never saw my mother. I did, but I was too young to remember. She died when I was a year old."
"But you never saw your father," I said.
"Oh no. He was killed at sea by the French."
That was news to me, although I had always been aware that he had died at sea on board his Majesty's ship Leda, one of Sir Peter's squadron.
"Who told you he was killed by the French?" I asked, soberly.
"Sir Peter. A few days after you left Johnstown I received a packet from Sir Peter. It came on a war-ship which put in at New York, and the express brought it. Sir Peter also wrote to Sir William. I don't know what he said. Sir William was very silent with me after that, but just before I left with Lady Shelton to come here, he had a long talk with me—"
She stopped abruptly.