"That is very kind of you," answered Marion, with a mocking tone in her voice, which was very familiar to her associates; "but I don't know that I have any claim to special exemption from the usual lot of mankind; and certainly pleasant experiences are not the usual lot, unless everyone is very much mistaken."
"People are too much given to sitting down and moaning over the unpleasantness of life, when they might make it otherwise by taking matters into their own hands," said Mr. Rathborne. "But that requires a strong will."
"And something beside will, does it not?"
"Oh! of course the ability to seize opportunity, and make one's self master of it."
"That is what I should like," said Marion, speaking as if to herself: "to seize opportunity. But the opportunity must come in order to be seized."
"There is little doubt but that it will come to you," remarked her companion, more and more impressed.
How far the conversation might have progressed in this personal vein, into which it had so unexpectedly fallen, it is difficult to say; for a spark of congenial sympathy had been already struck between these two people, who a few minutes before had been absolute strangers to each other. But at this point Mrs. Dalton stepped out of the hall and came toward them.
"I thought I heard your voice, Paul," she said, as Rathborne rose to shake hands with her; "and I wondered to whom you were talking, since I knew the girls were in the garden. But this is Marion, is it not?"
"It is Marion," replied that young lady. "I did not go into the garden—I felt too tired,—and Mr. Rathborne found me here a few minutes ago."
"It is somewhat late for an introduction, then," said Mrs. Dalton, "since you have already made acquaintance."