"I hope you are having a pleasant vacation," said she, as she looked at the watch, and all at once Ellen knew.
Ellen replied that she was having a very pleasant vacation, then she plunged at once into the subject of her call, though with inward trembling.
"Miss Lennox," said she--and she followed the lines of a little speech which she had been rehearsing to herself all the way there--"I am very grateful to you for what you propose doing for me. It will make a difference to me during my whole life. I cannot begin to tell you how grateful I am."
"I am very grateful to be allowed to do it," replied Cynthia, with her unfailing refrain of gentle politeness, but a kindly glance was in her eyes. Something in the girl's tone touched her. It was exceedingly earnest, with the simple earnestness of childhood. Moreover, Ellen was regarding her with great, steadfast, serious eyes, like a baby's who shrinks and yet will have her will of information.
"I wanted to say," Ellen continued--and her voice became insensibly hushed, and she cast a glance around at the house and the leafy grounds, as if to be sure that no one was within hearing--"that I should never under any circumstances have said anything regarding what happened so long ago. That I never have and never should have, that I never thought of doing such a thing."
Then the elder woman's face flushed a burning red, and she knew at once what the girl had suspected. "You might proclaim it on the house-tops if it would please you," she cried out, vehemently. "If you think--if you think--"
"Oh, I do not!" cried Ellen, in an agony of pleading. "Indeed, I do not. It was only that--I--feared lest you might think I would be mean enough to tell."
"I would have told, myself, long ago if there had been only myself to consider," said Cynthia, still red with anger, and her voice strained. All at once she seemed to Ellen more like the woman of her childhood. "Yes, I would," said she, hotly--"I will now."
"I will go with you this minute and tell your mother," Cynthia said, rising.
Ellen sprang up and moved towards her as if to push her back in her chair. "Oh, please don't!" she cried. "Please don't. You don't know mother; and it would do no good. It was only because I wondered if you could have thought I would tell, if I would be so mean."