Ellen saw.  She had often kissed it, but she made no reply.  She was occupied with considerations of the consequences.

“How did you come by her, if you don’t mind telling?” said the young man again.  “It is the most curious thing for me to find my old doll sitting here.  Of course Aunt Cynthia gave her to you, but I didn’t know that she was acquainted with you.  I suppose she saw a pretty little girl getting around without a doll after I had gone, and sent her, but—­”

Suddenly between the young man’s face and the girl’s flashed a look of intelligence.  Suddenly Robert remembered all that he had heard of Ellen’s childish escapade.  He knew.  He looked from her to the doll, and back again.  “Good Lord!” he said.  Then he set the doll down in her little chair all of a heap, and caught Ellen’s hand, and shook it.

“You are a trump, that is what you are,” he said; “a trump.  So she—­” He shook his head, and looked at Ellen, dazedly.  She did not say a word, but looked at him with her lips closed tightly.

“It is better for you not to tell me anything,” he said; “I don’t want to know.  I don’t understand, and I never want to, how it all happened, but I do understand that you are a trump.  How old were you?” Robert’s voice took on a tone of tenderness.

“Eight,” replied Ellen, faintly.

“Only a baby,” said the young man, “and you never told!  I would like to know where there is another baby who would do such a thing.”  He caught her hand and shook it again.  “She was like a mother to me,” he said, in a husky voice.  “I think a good deal of her.  I thank you.”

Suddenly to the young man looking at the girl a conviction as of some subtle spiritual perfume came; he had seen her beauty before, he had realized her charm, but this was something different.  A boundless approbation and approval which was infinitely more precious than admiration seized him.  Her character began to reveal itself, to come in contact with his own; he felt the warmth of it through the veil of flesh.  He felt a sense of reliance as upon an inexhaustibility of goodness in another soul.  He felt something which was more than love, being purely unselfish, with as yet no desire of possession.  “Here is a good, true woman,” he said to himself.  “Here is a good, true woman, who has blossomed from a good, true child.”  He saw a wonderful faithfulness shining in her blue eyes, he saw truth itself on her lips, and could have gone down at the feet of the little girl in the pink cotton frock.  Going home he tried to laugh at himself, but could not succeed.  It is easy to shake off the clasp of a hand of flesh, but not the clasp of another soul.

Ellen on her part was at once overwhelmed with delight and confusion.  She felt the fervor of admiration in the young man’s attitude towards her, but she was painfully conscious of her undeservingness.  She had always felt guilty about her silence and disobedience towards her parents, and as for any self-approbation for it, that had been the farthest from her thoughts.  She murmured something deprecatingly, but Lloyd cut her short.