CHAPTER XLI.
"DOUBLE, DOUBLE, TOIL AND TROUBLE."
I had for a day or two fancied that Marion was looking less bright than usual, as if some little shadow had fallen upon the morning of her life. I say morning, because, although Marion must now have been seven or eight and twenty, her life had always seemed to me lighted by a cool, clear, dewy morning sun, over whose face it now seemed as if some film of noonday cloud had begun to gather. Unwilling at once to assert the ultimate privilege of friendship, I asked her if any thing was amiss with her friends. She answered that all was going on well, at least so far that she had no special anxiety about any of them. Encouraged by a half-conscious and more than half-sad smile, I ventured a little farther.
"I am afraid there is something troubling you," I said.
"There is," she replied, "something troubling me a good deal; but I hope it will pass away soon."
The sigh which followed, however, was deep though gentle, and seemed to indicate a fear that the trouble might not pass away so very soon.
"I am not to ask you any questions, I suppose," I returned.
"Better not at present," she answered. "I am not quite sure that"—
She paused several moments before finishing her sentence, then added,—
"—that I am at liberty to tell you about it."