"A lady!" she repeated. "Who is she? Did she give no name or card?"
The servant replied that the lady had given neither, but that, in his opinion, she was a genuine visitor—not an agent for patent soap or anything else of the kind.
"I suppose I had better see her," said Marion, reluctantly; "but she can not be a person of any importance, or she would have sent her name."
She went down stairs, slowly, indifferently, with a sense of mental lassitude altogether new to her, entered the drawing-room, and found herself face to face with Helen. She uttered a cry as the sweet, affectionate face she knew so well turned toward her, and the next moment they were in each other's arms.
"O Marion! I am so glad that you are glad to see me!" were Helen's first words. "I was afraid that you might not be."
"Afraid that I might not be glad to see you!" said Marion. "How could that be?—what reason could I have? But, O Helen, dear Helen! how good it is of you to be glad to see me!"
"I know no reason why I should not be," replied Helen. "But I feared that there might be some disagreeable recollection—something to make you shrink from seeing me; so I thought I would spare you the shrinking—I would let you have the shock at once. But it is no shock, after all. The moment I saw your eyes, I knew you were glad."
"Oh! my dear, how kind you are!" cried Marion. "Glad! What should I be made of if I were not glad to see you—the most generous heart in all the world! But when did you come back to Scarborough?"
"Last night; and I would not write or let you know, because I wanted to see you myself, without any warning. And so, Marion, your great desire is accomplished—you have become rich since I went away!"
"And am on the point of becoming poor again," said Marion, with a smile. "Have you not heard that?"