The statement would have sounded heartless to me except that the woman's voice was wholly businesslike, just as if she had asked that question a hundred times already of other girls. "Oh, yes--yes, she was." "Before you was born?" "Yes." "What was her husband's name then?" "Jackson." "Christian name?" "George." "Jackson--Jackson--George Jackson." The woman repeated the name, dwelling upon it as if some memory were stirred in the repetition. "And you say you don't know who your father was?" "No--". I could n't help it--that word broke in a half hysterical sob. I kept saying to myself: "Oh, why did I come--why did I come?" "Now, look here, my dear," and it seemed as if a flood of tenderness drowned all those business tones in her voice, "you stop right where you are. There ain't no use my putting you into torment this way, place or no place--Doctor Rugvie wouldn't like it; 't ain't human. If you can tell me all you know, and want to, just you take your own time,"--she laid a hand on my shoulder,--"and if you don't, just set here a while till the tempest that's coming up is over, and I 'll see you safe home afterwards. You ain't fit to be out alone if you are twenty-six. You don't look a day over twenty. There 's nothing to you." She leaned nearer, her elbows on her knees, her chin resting in her palms. I tried to see her face, but the fog before my eyes was growing thicker, the room closer; her voice sounded far away. "See here--will it make it any easier if I tell you I 've got a girl consider'ble older than you as has never known her father's name either? And that there ain't no girl in New York as has a lovinger mother, nor a woman as has a lovinger daughter for all that?" I could not answer. A flash of red lightning filled the darkening room. It was followed by a crash of thunder, a rush of wind and a downpour as from a cloud-burst. I saw the woman rise and shut both windows; then for me there was a blank for two or three minutes. She told me afterwards that when she turned from the window, where she stood watching the rain falling in sheets, she saw me lying prone beside her chair. I know that I heard her talking, but I could not speak to tell her I could. "My gracious!" she ejaculated as she bent over me, "if this don't beat all! Jane," she called, but it sounded far away, "come here quick. Here, help me lift this girl on to the cot. Bring me that camphor bottle from the shelf; I 'll loosen her clothes.--Rub her hands.--She fell without my hearing her, there was such an awful crash.--Light the lamp too... "There now, she's beginning to come to; guess 't was nothing but the heat after all, or mebbe she 's faint to her stomach; you never can tell when this kind 's had any food. Just run down and make a cup of cocoa, but light the lamp first--I want to see what she 's like."