She looked down, pulling idly at the thrums along her beaded leggins.

“I told you I was near your age—­ twenty.  But I do not really know how old I am, I guess that I am twenty—­ thereabouts.”

“You look sixteen; not more—­ except the haunting sorrow——­”

“I can remember full that length of time....  I must be twenty, Euan.  When I was perhaps seven years old—­ or thereabout—­ I went to school—­ first in Schenectady to a Mistress Lydon; where were a dozen children near my age.  And pretty Mistress Lydon taught us A—­ B—­ C and manners—­ and nothing else that I remember now.  Then for a long while I was at home—­ which meant a hundred different lodgings—­ for we were ever moving on from place to place, where his employment led him, from one house to another, staying at one tavern only while his task remained unfinished, then to the road again, north, south, west, or east, wherever his fancy sped before to beckon him....  He was a strange man, Euan.”

“Your foster father?”

“Aye.  And my foster mother, too, was a strange woman.”

“Were they not kind to you?”

“Y-es, after their own fashion.  They both were vastly different to other folk.  I was fed and clothed when anyone remembered to do it, And when they had been fortunate, they sent me to the nearest school to be rid of me, I think.  I have attended many schools, Euan—­ in Germantown, in Philadelphia, in Boston, in New York.  I stayed not long in school at New York because there our affairs went badly.  And no one invited us in that city—­ as often we were asked to stay as guests while the work lasted—­ not very welcome guests, yet tolerated.”

“What was your foster father’s business?”

“He painted portraits....  I do not know how well he painted.  But he cared for nothing else, except his wife.  When he spoke at all it was to her of Raphael, and of Titian, and particularly of our Benjamin West, who had his first three colours of the Indians, they say.”

“I have heard so, too.”

She nodded absently, fingering her leggin-fringe; then, with a sudden, indrawn breath: 

“We were no more than roving gypsies, you see, living from hand to mouth, and moving on, always moving from town to town, remaining in one place while there were portraits to paint—­ or tavern-signs, or wagons—­ anything to keep us clothed and fed.  Then there came a day in Albany when matters mended over night, and the Patroon most kindly commanded portraits of himself and family.  It started our brief prosperity.

“Other and thrifty Dutchmen now began to bargain for their portraits.  We took an old house on Pearl Street, and I was sent to school at Mrs. Pardee’s Academy for young ladies as a day pupil, returning home at evening.  About that time my foster mother became ill.  I remember that she lay on a couch all day, watching her husband paint.  He and his art were all she cared for.  Me she seldom seemed to see—­ scarcely noticed when she saw me—­ almost never spake to me, and there were days and weeks, when I saw nobody in that silent house, and sat at meat alone—­ when, indeed, anyone remembered I was a hungry, growing child, and made provision for me.