her.

Suddenly Ellen felt some one pressing close to her, and, looking up,
saw a woman, only middle-aged, but whom she thought very old,
because her hair was white, standing looking at her very keenly with
clear, light-blue eyes under a high, pale forehead, from which the
gray hair was combed uncompromisingly back. The woman had been a
beauty once, of a delicate, nervous type, and had a certain beauty
now, a something which had endured like the fineness of texture of a
web when its glow of color has faded. Her black garments draped her
with sober richness, and there was a gleam of dark fur when the wind
caught her cloak. A small tuft of ostrich plumes nodded from her
bonnet. Ellen smelt flowers vaguely, and looked at the lady's hand,
but she did not carry any.

"Whose little girl are you?" Cynthia Lennox asked, softly, and Ellen
did not answer. "Can't you tell me whose little girl you are?"
Cynthia Lennox asked again. Ellen did not speak, but there was the
swift flicker of a thought over her face which told her name as
plainly as language if the woman had possessed the skill to
interpret it.

"Ellen Brewster--Ellen Brewster is my name," Ellen said to herself
very hard, and that was how she endured the reproach of her own
silence.

The woman looked at her with surprise and admiration that were
fairly passionate. Ellen was a beautiful child, with a face like a
white flower. People had always turned to look after her, she was so
charming, and had caused her mothers heart to swell with pride. "The