Suddenly Ellen felt some one pressing close to her, and, looking up, saw a woman, only middle-aged, but whom she thought very old, because her hair was white, standing looking at her very keenly with clear, light-blue eyes under a high, pale forehead, from which the gray hair was combed uncompromisingly back.  The woman had been a beauty once, of a delicate, nervous type, and had a certain beauty now, a something which had endured like the fineness of texture of a web when its glow of color has faded.  Her black garments draped her with sober richness, and there was a gleam of dark fur when the wind caught her cloak.  A small tuft of ostrich plumes nodded from her bonnet.  Ellen smelt flowers vaguely, and looked at the lady’s hand, but she did not carry any.

“Whose little girl are you?” Cynthia Lennox asked, softly, and Ellen did not answer.  “Can’t you tell me whose little girl you are?” Cynthia Lennox asked again.  Ellen did not speak, but there was the swift flicker of a thought over her face which told her name as plainly as language if the woman had possessed the skill to interpret it.

“Ellen Brewster—­Ellen Brewster is my name,” Ellen said to herself very hard, and that was how she endured the reproach of her own silence.

The woman looked at her with surprise and admiration that were fairly passionate.  Ellen was a beautiful child, with a face like a white flower.  People had always turned to look after her, she was so charming, and had caused her mothers heart to swell with pride.  “The way everybody we met has stared after that child to-day!” she would whisper her husband when she brought Ellen home from some little expedition; then the two would look at the little one’s face with the one holy vanity of the world.  Ellen wore to-night the little white shawl which her father had caught up when he carried her over to her grandmother’s.  She held it tightly together under her chin with one tiny hand, and her face looked out from between the soft folds with the absolute purity of curve and color of a pearl.

“Oh, you darling!” said the woman, suddenly; “you darling!” and Ellen shrank away from her.  “Don’t be afraid, dear,” said Cynthia Lennox.  “Don’t be afraid, only tell me who you are.  What is your name, dear?” But Ellen remained silent; only, as she shrank aloof, her eyes grew wild and bright with startled tears, and her sweet baby mouth quivered piteously.  She wanted to run, but the habit of obedience was so strong upon her little mind that she feared to do so.  This strange woman seemed to have gotten her in some invisible leash.

“Tell me what your name is, darling,” said the woman, but she might as well have importuned a flower.  Ellen was proof against all commands in that direction.  She suddenly felt the furry sweep of the lady’s cloak against her cheek, and a nervous, tender arm drawing her close, though she strove feebly to resist.  “You are cold, you have nothing on but this little white shawl, and perhaps you are hungry.  What were you looking in this window for?  Tell me, dear, where is your mother?  She did not send you on an errand, such a little girl as you are, so late on such a cold night, with no more on than this?”