“Do you happen to know where they went?” she said, pleasantly, at the same time handing the boy a bright half dollar.
“He’d kill me if he knew I told,” Bob said, as he pocketed the money, “but it’s either the Astor House or Moquin’s in Fulton street, miss. If ’twas me, I’d go to the Astor House first. It’s nicer over there and not so far as the other.”
Marion thanked him and turned away, with a curious feeling at her heart. There was something in the boy’s news that worried her sadly.
“I seen ’em cuttin’ across the Park,” muttered Bob, after she had gone, “but she can’t say I told her. I said either one or t’other.”
As the beautiful young girl picked her way across Park Row, more than one person stared at her. There was a freshness and stateliness about her that is not often seen in city maidens.
As yet the country bloom was still dyeing her cheeks, and the marvelous whiteness of her skin was good to behold.
She had passed through many trials since she came to the city, acting the part of heroine on several occasions, yet each time withdrawing herself and her noble deeds as rapidly as possible into the background.
“I can’t understand it,” she whispered, as she hurried across the Park. “Oh, my poor little sister; how thoughtless she is! Why, it would break Ralph Moore’s heart if he thought Dollie was fickle.”
Ralph Moore was Dollie’s sweetheart, and they were to be married soon—just as soon as Ralph’s position admitted of the change—and Marion already loved him as she would her own brother.
She knew that Dollie was only a child in heart, the baby of the family, and very unsophisticated, but she had not believed that she would be so really careless of Ralph’s feelings as to accept attention from her employer. Marion was thinking deeply as she reached Broadway, but as she stepped on the crossing she paused to look about her.