Page:Emma Speed Sampson--The shorn lamb.djvu/39

Rh The child's eyes filled with tears and she looked out of the window into the growing darkness of the spring night at the twinkling lights of a village through which they were rolling. Her mouth resumed the sad droop it had shown before the heavy bonnet was removed.

"What is it?" asked her companion sympathetically. "What is the matter, my dear?"

"Nothing—but—don't you understand how it makes me feel—to have told you all that long tiresome story about myself and then for you only to tell me your name and where you live, like a city directory? I feel so sad that you shouldn't trust me at all when I trusted you so much. I don't usually tell strangers the story of my life, but somehow the way you looked out of your eyes and a something in your voice and our going to housekeeping together and all made me spill over. I am very sorry, sir! I realize now how I must have bored you."

"Oh, but you didn't at all. You interested me intensely. I do trust you," he declared, smiling in her eyes until she smiled into his and the tears went back to whence they came. "I will tell you about myself if you want to know but I don't know where to begin."

That was very simple, the little girl thought.

"At the beginning, of course, the way I did.