Ajax touched one of the garments lightly, as became a bachelor.

“This work will bring you many shekels, Gloriana.  I had no idea you were such a needlewoman.”

“What!” she cried, her face crimson.  “Do you think I’d take money from Miriam Standish?  Why——­”

She stopped short in confusion, and covered her poor face with trembling hands.

“I beg your pardon,” said Ajax gravely, “I wouldn’t hurt your feelings, Gloriana, for the world.”

She looked up, irresolutely.

“I reckon I’ve said too much or too little,” she said slowly.  “Ye’re both gen’lemen, an’ ye’ve bin awful kind ter me.  I kin trust ye with my secret, an’ I’m goin’ ter do it.  The Standishes, are New England folk—­high-toned an’ mighty particler.  It’s as easy fer them ter be virtuous as ter eat punkin pie fer breakfast.  I come from Wisconsin, where we think more of our bodies than our souls; an’ ’twas in Wisconsin that I first met Dr. Standish.  He had a call to the town, wher I lived with—­with my sister.  She, my sister, was a real pretty girl then, but of a prettiness that soon fades.  An’ she hired out as cook ter the Doctor.  He was a good man, an’ a kind one, but she paid back his kindness by runnin’ off with his only son.”

“Surely,” said Ajax gently, “the son was also to blame?”

“No, sir, my sister was ter blame, an’ she knew it.  We was common folk, Mr. Ajax, what they would call in the South—­white trash, an’ the Standishes was real quality.  My sister knew that, an’ refused to marry the young man, tho’ he asked her on his bended knees.  Then he died, an’—­an’ my sister died, an’ nothin’ was left but the sorrow an’ the shame, an’—­Miriam.”

The name fell softly on a silence that we respected.  Presently she continued—­

“Doctor Standish offered to take the child, an’ I dared not keep her.  His terms were awful hard, but just:  the scandal’d broke up his home, an’ his heart.  He tole me he’d take Miriam ter Californy, an’ that she must never know the story of her mother’s sin.  That was right, Mr. Ajax—­eh?”

“I don’t know, Gloriana.  Go on.”

“I promised him never ter speak to the child, an’ I’ve kept my word; but he let me make her things.  That was kind of him—­very kind.”

“Very kind, indeed,” said Ajax.

“I followed ’em ter Californy, an’ worked out, an’ sold books an’ peddled fruit, but I’ve kep’ track o’ little Miriam.”

“You have never spoken to her, you say?”

“Never.  Doctor Standish kin trust me.  He’s posted me, too.  He tole me o’ the wedding.  I got word the night I first went ter the village, an’ that’s why—­” she smiled through her tears—­“that’s why I wore my teeth.  They cost me twenty dollars, an’ I keep ’em fer high days an’ holidays.”

Ajax began to pace up and down the room.  I heard him swearing to himself, and his fists were clenched.  I felt certain that he was about to interfere in matters that did not concern us.