CHAPTER ELEVENTH

MRS. MARVIN IS PERPLEXED.

"Jack's little girl! can it be? It is the strangest thing that ever happened to me. I do not understand it." Mrs. Marvin paced restlessly back and forth, an expression of pain and perplexity on her handsome face.

"Why should I care?" she thought; "what is it to me? I gave it all up long ago.— And yet—that dear little girl—those eyes—a Morrison every inch of her! There can be no mistake, but it is all a mystery how she happened to come here. How weak I am! why should it torture me so? Oh, Jack, Jack!" She hid her face in her hands.

It showed, however, no trace of emotion when half an hour later she encountered her housekeeper in the upper hall.

"Caroline, who is the little girl who came to see you this afternoon?" she asked.

"I suppose it was Emma Bond, Miss Frances; her mother has been hemstitching some pillow cases."

"Do you know anything about the child who was with her? I think she said she lived in the same house."

"I don't know who she is, Miss Frances. She is a pretty child, but I don't remember her name if I ever heard it."

"I saw her and was rather attracted to her. She seemed not quite the sort of child you would expect to find in a tenement house. There was a very respectable looking maid with her."

Caroline smiled. She was a bright-faced Swiss woman who had lived with her mistress for nearly thirty years, knew her thoroughly, and loved her devotedly. She was not deceived by the air of indifference with which the lady moved away; she understood that for some reason her mistress wished to find out all she knew about this little girl.

"It isn't what you'd call a tenement house," she said; "the man who owns it has made it into flats. He lives there himself, and has his shop, and Mrs. Bond keeps house for him. It is a real nice place."

"I fail to see the difference," was the reply; "but, Caroline, why did she think I was Mrs. Marvin? She called me so."

"I don't know, Miss Frances, unless it was Emma Bond's mistake. Her mother did some sewing for Mrs. Marvin when she was staying here."

"Well, Caroline, if you see Mrs. Bond you need not say anything about the mistake. You understand? I have a reason for wishing them to think I am Mrs. Marvin, as in fact I am."

"I should like to know what it means," Caroline said to herself as her mistress walked away.

"This is all very melodramatic and absurd, but I must have time to consider," the lady was thinking as she entered her own room, and closed the door behind her. "I must contrive to see her again."

Going to a cabinet, she took from an inner compartment a box, then she had a long search for the key, and after it was found she sat with the box on her lap gazing absently before her.

It was thirteen—almost fourteen years since she had lifted that lid. She had thought never to open it, unless—well, unless the impossible happened, and now a pair of brown eyes had aroused an irresistible longing to look once more on something that lay hidden there. In vain she told herself it was foolish, idle, worse than childish. She recalled the burning anger and resentment with which she had put the box away so long ago. Yes, and had she not just cause? But the touch of those young lips was still fresh upon her own, and whether she would or not, was carrying her back, back to the dear old days.

There was really very little in it, she reflected, as she began to look over the contents; but a few trifles can mean so much sometimes. There was a light brown curl, some photographs that showed how a certain chubby, dimpled baby had developed into a manly boy of sixteen, a bundle of letters in a schoolboy hand, and down at the very bottom, the thing she was so anxious to see again, a lovely miniature of a boy of seven.

She gazed at it long and earnestly. Such a dear little face! and this afternoon she had seen the same smile, had looked into the same eyes! Jack's daughter! was it possible?

He had called her Frances, too; he had not quite forgotten. It was, of course, a family name, and with all his independence Jack had a great deal of family pride. And the air with which she had said, "Perhaps you have read his stories,"—she could have laughed, but for the pain of the thought that she who had once been first had now no part in his life. Others had the right to be proud of him, but not she.

She closed the lid and put the box away: the past could not be recalled, she must try to forget, as she had tried all these years; but even as she made the resolve her heart was saying, "I must see that child again,—I must, must!"