'You have been with her a long time, I suppose,' Margaret said.

'Since she was three years old.'

'California is a beautiful country, isn't it?' asked Margaret after a
pause.

She put the question idly, for she was thinking how hard it must be to
teach deaf and dumb children. Miss More's answer surprised her.

'I have never been there.'

'But, surely, Senator Moon lived in San Francisco,' Margaret said.

'Yes. But the child was sent to New England when she was three,
and never went back again. We have been living in the country near
Boston.'

'And the Senator used to pay you a visit now and then, of course, when
he was alive. He must have been immensely pleased by the success of
your teaching.'

Though Margaret felt that she was growing more curious about little
Ida than she often was about any one, it did not occur to her that the
question she now suggested, rather than asked, was an indiscreet one,
and she was surprised by her companion's silence. She had already
discovered that Miss More was one of those literally truthful people
who never let an inaccurate statement pass their lips, and who will
be obstinately silent rather than answer a leading question, quite
regardless of the fact that silence is sometimes the most direct