“You must not forbid me, Roger. I can’t think of them without thinking of you. This is Christmas eve! Miss Murray told us that we must never let it pass without thinking of all that it means. But without Miss Murray, I have been thinking all day of things which are hard to name,—of death and life, of my parents and you, of my incredible happiness. I feel to-night like a princess in a fairy-tale. I am a poor creature, without a friend, without a penny or a home; and yet, here I sit by a blazing fire, with money, with food, with clothes, with love. The snow outside is burying the stone-walls, and yet here I can sit and simply say, ‘How pretty!’ Suppose I were in it, wandering and begging,—I might have been! Should I think it pretty then? Roger, Roger, I am no one’s child!” The tremor in her voice deepened, and she broke into a sudden passion of tears. Roger took her in his arms and tried to soothe away her sobs. But she disengaged herself and went on with an almost fierce exaltation: “No, no, I won’t be comforted! I have had comfort enough; I hate it. I want for an hour to be myself and feel how little that is, to be my miserable father’s daughter, to fancy I hear my mother’s voice. I have never spoken of them before; you must let me to-night. You must tell me about my father; you know something. I don’t. You never refused me anything, Roger; don’t refuse me this. He was not good, like you; but now he can do no harm. You have never mentioned his name to me, but happy as we are here together, we ought not,—we ought not, to despise him!”