Marian smiled.
"How? Oh, you must make yourself a position from which to influence people! I do not know that I can advise you how; but you will find a way, as—were I a man, I should!"
"Being a woman, you have done wonders!"
"For a woman," said Marian, with a glance full of archness and merriment.
"No, no; for any one, man or woman! But your method, Marian? I beg your pardon, Miss Mayfield," he added, with a blush of ingenuous embarrassment.
"Nay, now," said the frank girl; "do call me Marian if that name springs more readily from your lips than the other. Almost all persons call me Marian, and I like it."
A rush of pleasure thrilled all through his veins; he gave her words a meaning and a value for himself that they did not certainly possess; he forgot that the grace extended to him was extended to all—nay, that she had even said as much in the very words that gave it. He answered:
"And if I do, fairest Marian, shall I, too, hear my own Christian name in music from your lips?"
"Oh, I do not know," said the beautiful girl, laughing and blushing. "If
it ever comes naturally, perhaps; certainly not now. Why, the venerable
Colonel Thornton calls me 'Marian,' but it never comes to me to call him
'John!'"