Page:Salem - a tale of the seventeenth century (IA taleseventeenth00derbrich).pdf/240

 *—her father? She had never heard of him before; and, strange as it now seemed to her, when her thoughts were thus turned to the subject, it had never before occurred to her that she ever had a father.

Her grandmother had so constantly spoken of her as her daughter's child, as her own Alice's "wee Allie," that it had never entered her mind that she belonged to any other parent.

Her grandmother, her mother, and herself—these formed for her a regular trio; and she had grown up so impressed with the idea that they three were and had been all in all to each other, that any other relationship had seemed superfluous; but now, when her thoughts had been called to the subject, she wondered at her own stupidity, and puzzled herself in wild conjectures. Why had her grandmother never mentioned her father to her? No doubt he must have died long ago—in her infancy, perhaps, as her poor mother did. And yet, if he had—her grandmother had always talked to her of her mother, and had taught her to love and cherish her memory. Why, then, had she