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Page 37
"Do you really feel so grateful for the little I have done?" he asked
suddenly.
The girl drew a long breath.
"I don't dare to tell you _how_ grateful."
"Well, then, will you tell me all about yourself? I'm getting more
puzzled every moment. I hope it isn't rude to say so, but--you and this
place don't _fit_."
For a moment the girl did not answer. Then she put the paper which had
held the biscuits carefully into the cupboard by the fireplace, and as
she did so he saw her raise her shoulders with an involuntary and
expressive shrug.
"I suppose it is rather surprising," she said at last, as she folded her
hands in her lap and kept her eyes fixed upon the red heart of the fire.
"It surprises me sometimes."
There was a pause, but Max would not interrupt her, for he thought from
her manner that an explanation of some sort was coming. At last she went
on, raising her head a little, but without looking at him:
"And very likely it will astonish you still more to hear that in coming
to this place I made a change for the better."
Max was too much surprised to make any comment.
"If you want to know my name, date of birth, parentage and the rest of
it," went on the girl, in a tone of half-playful recklessness, "why, I
have no details to give you. I don't know anything about myself, and
nobody I know seems to know any more. Granny says she does, but I don't
believe her."
She paused.
"Why, surely," began Max, "your own grandmother--"
"But I don't even know that she is my own grandmother," interrupted the
girl, sharply. "If she were, wouldn't she know my name?"
"That seems probable, certainly."
"Well, she doesn't, or she says she doesn't. She pretends she has
forgotten, or puts me off when I ask questions, though any one can
understand my asking them."
This was puzzling, certainly. Max had no satisfactory explanation to
offer, so he shook his head and tried to look wise. As long as she would
go on talking, and about herself, too, he didn't care what she said.
"What does she call you?" asked he, after a silence.
"Carrie--Carrie Rivers. But the 'Rivers' is not my name, I know. It was
given me by Miss Aldridge, who brought me up, and she told me it wasn't
my real name, but that she gave it to me because it was 'proper to have
one.' So how can I believe Granny when she says that it is not my name?
Or at least that she has forgotten whether I had any other? If she had
really forgotten all that, wouldn't she have forgotten my existence
altogether, and not have taken the trouble to hunt me out, and to take
me away from the place where she found me?"
"Where was that?" asked Max.
The girl hung her head, and answered in a lower voice, as if her reply
were a distasteful, discreditable admission:
"I was bookkeeper at a hotel--a wretched place, where I was miserable,
very miserable."
Max was more puzzled than ever.
Every fresh detail about herself and her life made him wonder the more
why she was refined, educated. Presently she looked up, and caught the
expression on his face.
"That was after Miss Aldridge died," she said, with a sigh. "I had lived
with her ever since I was a little girl. I can hardly remember anything
before that--except--some things, little things, which I would rather
forget." And her face clouded again. "She was a very old lady, who had
been rich once, and poor after that. She had kept a school before she
had me; and after that, I was the school. I had to do all the learning
of a schoolful. Do you see?"
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