CHAPTER III.
"You have not told me yet, Marion, what you think of Paul," said Helen the next day.
The two girls were together in a handsome, airy parlor, through which the stream of family life had been flowing all morning, but from which it had now ebbed, leaving them alone. Helen, who had been flitting like a bird from one occupation, or attempt at occupation, to another, now threw herself into a chair by one of the low open windows, and looked at Marion, who was lying luxuriously on a couch near by, and for an hour past had not lifted her eyes from her book.
They were lifted now, however, and regarded the speaker quietly. "What do I think of Mr. Rathborne?" she asked. "My dear Helen, what can I possibly think of him on such short acquaintance, except that he is tall and good-looking, and appears to have a very good opinion of himself?"
"O Marion!"
"For all that I know, it may be an opinion based on excellent grounds, but it is undoubtedly the first thing about him that attracts one's attention."
"It is based on excellent grounds," said Helen, with some spirit. "Everyone who knows Paul admires and looks up to him."
"Not quite everyone," observed an unexpected voice, and through the window by which she sat Mr. Frank Morley stepped into the room. "I am sorry to come upon the scene with a contradiction," he said, as he took his cousin's hand; "but really, you know, Helen, that is too sweeping an assertion. I don't look up to Paul Rathborne."
"So much the worse for you, then," said Helen. "A boy like you could not do better."
"I think that a boy, even though he were like me, might do much better. He might look up to someone who was not so selfish and conceited."