"What a dear little girl!" Marian exclaimed in sudden admiration, as a pair of blue eyes were raised to meet hers, and a delicately-tinted face, crowned with a mass of golden curls, became suddenly illuminated with a sweet smile. "What is your name, little one?"
"Molly, please, miss."
"Will you give me a kiss, little Molly?"
No answer, except the same smile, wholly sweet, but with a certain appealing weakness in it that went straight to Marian's kind heart. She bent down and kissed the child, and then turned to the mother who was watching her earnestly.
"Our Molly is not quite like other children, miss," Mrs. Lethbridge said, with a break in her voice. "We sometimes think she is not right here," indicating her forehead with a quick motion of her hand.
Marian felt shocked. She looked again at the little girl, and was conscious of a somewhat vacant expression in the clear, blue eyes that had escaped her notice at first.
"She is not very bad," the mother continued hastily; "but she can't learn. We have to send her to school; but she doesn't remember anything. She's an affectionate, obedient child, but strange—very. It does seem hard she should be different to other children," in slightly aggrieved tones; "the only girl, too! My boys are right in mind and body; but Molly—why, she don't know more now than a child of five years old ought, and she's eight."
"God has given you a heavy trouble to bear," Marian said, sympathetically.
"He has, indeed, miss. Sometimes I wonder what will become of Molly when she grows up. If anything happened to her father or me, whatever would she do?"
"Her Father in heaven would provide for her, Mrs. Lethbridge."