"You see, I have been out so
little, but if you would come and see me--oh, I should be so grateful."
"Then you must count me as one of your rare friends!" she said.
Nothing could be so rare or so sweet as her smile. Fancy papa throwing
over this angel for Mrs. Carruthers! Men are certainly unaccountable
creatures.
I said I would be too honored to have her for a friend, and she took my
hand.
"You bring back the long ago," she said. "My name is Evangeline,
too--Sophia Evangeline--and I sometimes think you may have been called so
in remembrance of me."
What a strange, powerful factor love must be! Here were these two women,
Mrs. Carruthers and Lady Merrenden--the very opposites of each other--and
they had evidently both adored papa, and both, according to their natures,
had taken an interest in me in consequence, the child of a third woman who
had superseded them both! Papa must have been extraordinarily fascinating,
for to the day of her death Mrs. Carruthers had his miniature on her
table, with a fresh rose beside it--his memory the only soft spot, it
seemed, in her hard heart.
And this sweet lady's eyes melted in tenderness when she spoke of the long
ago, although she does not know me well enough yet to say anything
further. To me papa's picture is nothing so very wonderful--just a
good-looking young Guardsman, with eyes shaped like mine, only gray, and
light, curly hair.
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