Mrs. Ayres smoothed her hair. "Lucy," said she, "listen. I know what is going on within you as you don't know it yourself. I know the agony of it as you don't know it yourself." "I'd like to know how." "Because you are my child; because I can hardly sleep for thinking of you; because every one of my waking moments is filled with you. Lucy, because I am your mother and you are yourself. I am not taunting you. I understand." "You can't." "I do. I know just how you felt about that young man from the city who boarded at the hotel six years ago. I know how you felt about Tom Merrill, who called here a few times, and then stopped, and married a girl from Boston. I have known exactly how you have felt about all the others, and--I know about this last." Her voice sank to a whisper. "I have had some reason," Lucy said, with a terrible eagerness of self-defence. "I have, mother." "What?" "One day, the first year he came, I was standing at the gate beside that flowering-almond bush, and it was all in flower, and he came past and he looked at the bush and at me, then at the bush again, and he said, 'How beautiful that is!' But, mother, he meant me." "What else?" "You remember he called here once." "Yes, Lucy, to ask you to sing at the school entertainment." "Mother, it was for more than that. You did not hear him speak at the door. He said, 'I shall count on you; you cannot disappoint me.' You did not hear his voice, mother." "What else, Lucy?" "Once, one night last winter, when I was coming home from the post-office, it was after dark, and he walked way to the house with me, and he told me a lot about himself. He told me how all alone in the world he was, and how hard it was for a man to have nobody who really belonged to him in the wide world, and when he said good-night at the gate he held my hand--quite a while; he did, mother." "What else, Lucy?" "You remember that picnic, the trolley picnic to Alford. He sat next to me coming home, and--" "And what?" "There were only--four on the seat, and he--he sat very close, and told me some more about himself: how he had been alone ever since he was a little boy, and--how hard it had been. Then he asked how long ago father died, and if I remembered, and if I missed him still." "I don't quite understand, dear, how that--" "You didn't hear the way he spoke, mother." "What else, Lucy?" "He has always looked at me very much across the church, and whenever I have met him it has not been so much what--he said as--his manner. You have not known what his manner was, and you have not heard how he spoke, nor seen his eyes when--he looked at me--" "Yes, dear, you are right. I have not. Then you have thought he was in love with you?" "Sometimes he has made me think so, mother," Lucy sobbed. Mrs. Ayres gazed pitifully at the girl. "Then when you thought perhaps he was not you felt badly." "Oh, mother!" "You were not yourself." "Oh, mother!"