“Sit down, Cynthia,” said Risley.  “I tell you they were not harsh to her.  You don’t seem to consider that they love the child—­possibly better than you can—­and would not in the nature of things be harsh to her under such circumstances.  Sit down and hear the rest of it.”

“But they will be harsh by-and-by, after the first joy of finding her is over,” said Cynthia.  “I will go and tell them the first thing in the morning, Lyman.”

“You will do nothing so foolish.  They are not only not insisting upon her telling her secret, but announced to me their determination not to do so in the future.  I wish you could have seen that man’s face when he told me what a delicate, nervous little thing his child was, and the doctor said she must not be fretted if she had taken a notion not to tell; and I wish you could have seen the mother and the aunt, and the grandmother, Mrs. Zelotes Brewster.  They would all give each other and themselves up to be torn of wild beasts first.  It is easy to see where the child got her extraordinary strength of will.  They took me out in the sitting-room, and there was a wild flurry of feminine skirts before me.  I had previously overheard myself announced as Lawyer Risley by the aunt, and the response from various voices that they were ‘goin’ if he was comin’ out in the sittin’-room.’  It always made them nervous to see lawyers.  Well, I followed the parents and the grandmother and the aunt out.  I dared not refuse when they suggested it, and I hoped desperately that the child would not remember me from that one scared glance she gave at me this morning.  But there she sat in her little chair, holding the doll you gave her, and she looked up at me when I entered, and I have never in the whole course of my existence seen such an expression upon the face of a child.  Remember me?  Indeed she did, and she promised me with the faithfulest, stanchest eyes of a woman set in a child’s head that she would not tell; that I need not fear for one minute; that the lady who had given her the doll was quite safe.  She knew, and she must have heard what I said to you this morning.  She is the most wonderful child I have ever seen.”

Cynthia had sank back in her chair.  Lyman Risley put his cigar back between his lips; Cynthia was quite still, her delicate profile towards him.

“I assure you there is not the slightest danger of their troubling the child because of her silence, and you would do an exceedingly foolish thing, and its consequences would react not upon yourself only, but—­upon others, were you to confess the truth to them,” he said after a little.  “You must think of others—­of your friends, and of your sister’s boy, whose loss led you into this.  This would—­well, it would get into the papers, Cynthia.”

“Do you think that the doll continued to please her?” asked Cynthia.

“Cynthia, I want you to promise,” said her friend, persistently.

“Very well, I will promise, if you will promise to let me know the minute you hear that they are treating her harshly because of her silence.”