In this instance it
was hardly the eyes themselves, but rather the way they looked at him,
and the sweep of the long lashes, together with a firm shutting together
of the lips, which struck Mr. St. Claire as familiar, and when with a
swift movement of her little hand, she swept the mass of golden hair
back from her forehead, he would have sworn that he had seen that trick
a thousand times, and yet he could not place it. That she was the child
of the dead woman he believed, and as the mother was French, so also was
she. He had once passed two years in France, and was master of the
language; so he spoke to the child in French, but though she seemed to
understand him she made no reply, until he said to her:
'Where is your mother, little one?'
'Then she answered, promptly, 'Dead,' but the language was German, not
French.
'Ho-ho! You are a little Dutchman,' Mr. St. Claire said, with some
surprise in his voice.
Then as he noted the purity of her complexion, her fair hair and blue
eyes, he said to himself:
'Her father was a German, and probably they lived in Germany, but the
mother was certainly French.'
His own knowledge of German was very limited, but he could speak it a
little, and turning again to the child he managed to say:
'What is your name!'
'Der-ree,' was the reply, and Harold exclaimed:
'That's it; she means Jerry; that's short for the name on her clothes,
which you said was pronounced Jereen.
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