“Why, didn’t you know!”
“And was Miss Allison in love with Uncle William?”
Miss Lucretia answered doubtfully:
“I don’t know. She was a child. She never said so.”
“Did she ever, later on, have a love-affair?”
His aunt shook her head.
“Not that I know of. She was always so taken up with her own household. They were very close to each other, a very united family.”
“It is a wonderful little face,” Mark said, looking down at the daguerreotype.
“She was only a child then,” Lucretia repeated, “not more than fifteen.” Her eyes became reminiscent. “She was still so young, only seventeen, when he died. When he came home, he knew he had not long to live. He used to sit out here and watch her as she moved about. He never talked much, but the look in his eyes was,” Aunt Lucretia stated in her quiet way, “very moving.”
Mark heard a step, and glanced up to see Miss Allison Clyde herself standing beside them, looking down at them with a smile.