Page:Stella Dallas, a novel (IA stelladallasnove00prou).pdf/64

54 "Why, no. Didn't you know? Didn't your father tell you?"

Laurel shook her head. "No, father has told me nothing."

"He is not living, Laurel," gently Mrs. Morrison announced.

"Oh," said Laurel. "Of course," she went on, "I knew he wasn't really away on business, because of the drawers in the chiffonier being perfectly empty, and the closet beside yours, too, where you hung my things. But I didn't see any pictures of him around, so I thought perhaps you were separated."

"The portrait in the big gold frame in the living-room is a picture of him, Laurel, and that's a copy of it, in the silver frame on my dressing-table."

"Is he your husband?" exclaimed Laurel.

She had studied the portrait. The man in the portrait looked like a grandfather! He had long drooping mustaches, almost white, and the sockets of his eyes hung down like the eyes of a hunting-hound, Laurel had seen in the Maine woods once.

"Yes. Why?"

"He looks too old for you!"

"Does he? Well, he was older, but, oh, ever so kind, and the father of my dear boys, and," she added after a pause, "the father of my little girl, too."

"Your little girl?"

"Yes, Laurel, my only little girl. She died, before she was old enough to walk without holding tight onto one of my fingers."

"What was her name?"

"Carol."