“Excuse me,” said Olive, “not always.  I remember a child you did not care for, on whom you did not even look, who was absolutely nothing to you, although you were so much to her.”

Mr. Hemphill stared.  “I do not remember such a child,” said he.

“She existed,” said Olive.  “I was that child.”  And then she told him how she had seen him come to her father’s house.

Mr. Hemphill remembered Lieutenant Asher, he remembered going to his house, but he did not remember seeing there a little girl.

“I was not so very little,” said Olive; “I was fourteen, and I was just at an age to be greatly attracted by you.  I thought you were the most beautiful young man I had ever beheld.  I don’t mind telling you, because I can not look upon you as a stranger, that I fell deeply in love with you.”

As Mr. Hemphill sat and listened to these words his face turned redder than the reddest rose, even his silky whiskers seemed to redden, his fine-cut red lips were parted, but he could not speak.  The two little girls had been gazing earnestly at Olive.  Now the elder one spoke.

“I am in love,” she said.

“And so am I,” piped up the younger one.

“She’s in love with Martha’s little Jim,” said the first girl, “but I am in love with Henry.  He’s eight.  Both boys.”

“I wouldn’t be in love with a girl,” said the little one contemptuously.

This interruption was a help to Mr. Hemphill, and his redness paled a little.

“Of course you could not be expected to know anything of my feelings for you,” said Olive, “and perhaps it is very well you did not, for business is business, and the feelings of girls should not be allowed to interfere with it.  But my heart went out to you all the same.  You were my first love.”

Now Mr. Hemphill crimsoned again worse than before.  He had not yet spoken a word, and there was no word in the English language which he thought would be appropriate for the occasion.

“You may think I am a little cruel to plump this sort of thing upon you,” said Olive, “in such a sudden way, but I am not.  All this was seven years ago, and a person of my age can surely speak freely of what happened seven years ago.  I did not even know you when I met you, but Mrs. Easterfield told me about you, and now I remember everything, and I think it would have been inhuman if I had not told you of the part you used to play in my life.  You have a right to know it.”

If Mr. Hemphill could have reddened any more he would have done so, but it was not possible.  The thought flashed into his mind that it might be well to say something about her having found him very much changed, but in the next instant he saw that that would not do.  How could he assume that he had ever been beautiful; how could he force her to say that he was not beautiful now, or that he still remained so?

“I am very glad I have met you,” said Olive, “and that I know who you are.  And I am glad, too, to tell you that I forgive you for not taking notice of me seven years ago.”