The young community crowded round to say a thousand affectionate farewells, when, for a moment, Marion looked at them all with her own beautiful smile, but unable to control her emotion, she turned away her head, and burst into an agony of tears.
"Miss Dunbar, my dear! the sooner this is all over the better!" said Mrs. Penfold, hastily advancing, with a look of irritable vexation. "No wonder you are sorrow to leave us; but what can't be cured must be endured. Remember to be diligent in practising your music, as the success of my establishment depends on the conduct of all my young ladies. The only recompense I am ever likely to receive for my care, will proceed from your attention not to do me any discredit. Now, farewell, my dear, and try bear up the best way you can!"
"Mrs. Penfold!" faltered Marion, while a flash of bright intelligence lighted up her eyes; "allow me, for a single moment, to see you alone!"
"No! no! my dear! I hate scenes; therefore let us now take leave. I wish you well!" added Mrs. Penfold, in a tone that sounded marvellously sincere. "I really do! Whatever has happened is your misfortune, not your fault!"
"One single word, if you please," whispered Marion, coloring the deepest carnation, and leading the way to an inner room, while Mrs. Penfold followed, with an air of royal condescension. "The fault is indeed, as you kindly remark, not my own; but for my sake, Mrs. Penfold, spare my brother's name in all you say. It gives me pleasure to think that I can do something towards settling our account myself, and I would think no sacrifice worth a thought, that enabled me to do so. My mother's trinkets were divided between Agnes and me; besides which my dear kind uncle has been lavish in his gifts. This gold repeater cost a great sum, and that locket is set in diamonds."
"Well, my dear!" interrupted Mrs. Penfold, relaxing into a look of graciousness, "such honorable sentiments show that you have not been under my care in vain; and though these pretty trifles are not equivalent to what you owe, yet half a loaf is better than no bread!"
"All that I ever possessed, the gifts or legacies of friends and relations, I leave in pledge with you, Mrs. Penfold, as an assurance, that if brighter days ever come, I would redeem them at twenty times their value. Keep these till then. Whatever ornaments I might ever wear, would be a reproach till you are paid. Some debts never can be sufficiently discharged, and among these is what I owe to your care during many past years."
The bright eyes of Marion were dimmed with tears of sincerity and emotion when she concluded; and, placing the casket in Mrs. Penfold's astonished hands, she hastened out of the room. Giving a last, long look at those inanimate objects to which she had been accustomed, and feeling that even to these she could not without regret bid a final adieu, Marion threw herself into the carriage, and drove off, so overpowered with anguish and anxiety respecting her brother, that she scarcely noticed the phalanx of white pocket handkerchiefs, waved to her as a last farewell from those beloved companions, among whom so large a share of her young affections had hitherto been lavished; and thus she took a final farewell of Mrs. Penfold's finishing seminary for young ladies, where she was never destined to be finished!
CHAPTER XI.
Marion Dunbar being by no means an arrant novel reader, knew nothing of those artificial feelings which too often obliterated the reality. Simple as a field-flower, her natural sensibility remained perfectly fresh and unimpaired, while now, for the first time, experiencing the withering disappointments, and blighting anxieties of life.