The old lady smoothed the satin folds of her gown thoughtfully before she spoke, then continued with extreme gentleness:
"Tell me all about her."
"I couldn't do that," declared Robert Morton. "There aren't words enough to give you any idea how lovely she is or how good."
Nevertheless, because he had so eager and sympathetic a listener, he at length began shyly to unfold the story of Delight Hathaway's strange life. He told it reverently and with a lover's tenderness, touching on the girl's tragic advent into the hamlet of Wilton, on her beauty, and on her poverty.
"What a romance!" exclaimed Madam Lee meditatively, when the tale was done. "And they know nothing of the child's previous history?"
"Next to nothing. The girl's mother died when she was born and the little tot lived all her life aboard ship with her father."
"Had neither the father nor mother any relatives?"
"Apparently not. The mate of the ship said he had never heard the Captain mention any."
"Poor little waif! And these people who took her in have been kind to her? She is fond of them?"
"She adores them!"