She began to tell him about a little boy, who said--"it was too
funny!" she interrupted herself, smiling--"who said that _you_ were
'Mrs. Richie's brother,' and you stayed at her house in Old Chester,
and--"
"Perfect nonsense!" he broke in. "He mistook me for some one else, I
suppose."
"Oh, of course," she agreed, laughing; upon which Mr. Pryor changed
the subject by saying that he must look over some papers. "Don't talk
now, dear," he said.
Alice subsided into her novel; but after a while she put the book
down. No; the little boy had not mistaken him for somebody else; "he's
Mr. Pryor," the child had said. But, of course, the rest was all a
funny mistake. She took the book up again, but as she read, she began
to frown. Old Chester: Where had she heard of Old Chester? Then she
remembered. A gentleman who came to call,--King? Yes; that was his
name; Dr. King. He said he had come from Old Chester. And he had
spoken of somebody--now, who was it? Oh, yes, Richie; Mrs. Richie. And
once last spring when her father went to Mercer he said he was going
to Old Chester; yet now he said he had never heard of the place.--Why!
it almost seemed as if she had blundered upon a secret! Her uneasy
smile faded involuntarily into delicate disgust; not because the
nature of the secret occurred to her, but because secrecy in itself
was repugnant to her, as it is to all nobler minds.
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