"Do you like an automobile?" asked the old man.
"I don't know, I never had one."
The stranger looked at her confidingly. "My daughter has one," he
said, "and I know she bought it for me, and she has me taken out in
it, but I am afraid. It goes too fast. I can't get over being afraid.
But you won't tell her, will you, Ann Eliza?"
"Of course I won't."
Ellen continued to gaze at him, but she did not speak.
"Let me see, what is your name, my dear?" the man went on. He was
leaning on his stick, and Ellen noticed that he trembled slightly, as
though with weakness. He breathed hard. The veinous hands folded on
top of the stick were almost as white as his ears.
"My name is Ellen Dix," she said.
"Dix--Dix?" repeated the man. "Why, I know that name, certainly, of
course! You must be the daughter of Cephas Dix. Odd name, Cephas,
eh?"
Ellen nodded, her eyes still busy with the details of the stranger's
appearance. She was sure she had never seen him before, yet he knew
her father's name.
"My father has been dead a long time," she said; "ever since I was a
little girl."
The man appeared singularly disquieted by this intelligence. "I
hadn't heard that," he said. "Dead--a long time? Well!"
He scowled, flourishing his stick as if to pass on; then settled to
his former posture, his pale hands folded on its handsome gold top.
"Cephas Dix wasn't an old man," he muttered, as if talking to
himself. "Not old. He should be hale and hearty, living in this good
country air.
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