"I don't know what you mean, madam." The puce bodice was visibly moved. "That was _my_ baby, bless his little heart. Poor Ellen's a respectable girl--she's been with me since she was a little trot of six--all except the eleven months she was away with you--and then my Fred see her to the door, and fetched her from your station. She _would_ go--though not _our_ wish. I suppose she wanted a change. But since then she's never been over an hour away, except when she took my Gustavus over to see you. She must have told you whose he was--but I suppose you weren't paying attention. And I must say I don't think it's becoming in you, if you'll excuse me saying so, to come here taking away a young girl's character. At least, if she's not so young as she was, of course--we none of us are, not even yourself, madam, if you'll pardon me saying so." "I beg your pardon," said Mrs. Despard. She had never felt so helpless--so silly. The absurd parlour, ponderous with plush, dusky with double curtains, had for her all the effect of a nightmare. She felt that she was swimming blindly in a sea of disenchantment. "Don't think me inquisitive," she said, "but Miss Eden was engaged, wasn't she, some time ago, to someone who was killed in South Africa?" "Never--in all her born days," said Mrs. Eden, with emphasis. "I suppose it's her looks. I've had a good many offers myself, though I'm not what you might call anything out of the way--but poor Ellen--never had so much as a nibble." Mrs. Despard gasped. She clung against reason to the one spar of hope in this sea of faiths dissolved. It might be--it must be--some mistake! "You see, poor Ellen"--Mrs. Eden made as much haste to smash up the spar as though she had seen it--"poor Ellen, when her mother and father died she was but six. There was only her and my Fred, so naturally we took her, and what little money the old lady left we spent on her, sending her to a good school, and never counting the bit of clothes and victuals. She was always for learning something, and above her station, and the Rev. Mrs. Peterson at St. Michael, and All Angels--she made a sort of pet of Ellen, and set her up, more than a bit." Mrs. Despard remembered that Mrs. Peterson had been Miss Eden's reference. "And then she _would_ come to you--though welcome to share along with us, and you can see for yourself it's a good business--and when that little bit was left her, of course, she'd no need to work, so she came home here, and I must say she's always been as handy a girl and obliging as you could wish, but wandering, too, in her thoughts. Always pens and ink. I shouldn't wonder but what she wrote poetry. Yards and yards of writing she does. I don't know what she does with it all." But Mrs. Despard knew. Mrs. Eden talked on gaily and gladly--till not even a straw was left for her hearer to cling to.