Marion smiled at these words of praise from her father, but did not show by a look that she thought them surprising.
“I sang one night in a concert hall,” she said, laughing. “I had no idea what the place was like before I sang, or I would never have done it; but I guess it didn’t hurt me, and I made a hundred dollars.”
“What!” cried her father and mother, in one breath.
Marion nodded her head in a knowing manner.
“They offered me that every night if I would sing,” she said, proudly; “but it was a drinking place, and I wouldn’t do it.”
Deacon Marlowe was still staring at her as though he could not believe his senses. Such tales as this set his old brain to spinning.
“Everything that is wicked pays well in New York,” said Marion, sadly; “but it’s another thing when you are honest and want to live decently.”
Mrs. Marlowe began weeping again, this time very quietly.
“Tew think what we have come tew,” she moaned, behind her apron. “Our two daughters in a big, wicked city a-tryin’ tew earn their livin’, an’ yew an’ me, Joshuy, a-goin’ tew leave the old home an’ go tew the Poor Farm, an’ it’s all on account of yewr hardness an’ overbearin’—it’s all yewr fault, Joshuy!”
Marion stopped her before she could go any farther.