“Poor Ralph,” sighed Marion, “I pity him sometimes! Dollie is such a child! Really, I am almost sorry there is an engagement.”
“Don’t let it worry you,” said Miss Allyn, brightly, “and, now, before I go, I am going to tell you some good news. Your friend, Mr. Ray, is back in town, and you have no idea how anxious he is to see you.”
The sweet face on the pillow flushed slightly at her words, and a little smile brought out two bewitching dimples.
“Oh, I am so glad!” Marion murmured, with a happy look in her eyes, and just then the nurse came over and dismissed her friend pleasantly.
As Marion lay on her cot she had ample time to think, and there were many subjects just now that were clamoring for attention. Here they were, she and Dollie, in the great city of New York, without friends or money, except what their own efforts brought to them.
Still, through these very efforts she had already accomplished a little.
Her first triumph has been in saving her sister from a villain’s clutches; another, the heroic act of saving a life, had brought her sufficient money to pay off the mortgage on the old homestead in the country and so save her parents from a home at the Poor Farm. But aside from these bright spots, it had been all sorrow and suffering, but Marion had hoped it was all over when Dollie secured the position in Lawyer Atherton’s office, and she, herself, was accepted as a nurse in Charity Hospital.
Miss Allyn had fitted up a cosy little flat in Harlem and taken Dollie to live with her, and Miss Allyn was so wise and so fond of the girl, Marion’s heart was full of gratitude toward the noble woman.
“Oh, Dollie, my poor, weak sister!” she whispered to herself, “why is it you cannot learn to trust those who are wiser than you? Have you not had bitterness enough already in your young life, but that you must persist in wilfully inviting more sorrow?”
It was a happy moment when Mr. Ray and his sister were announced. They were the first friends she had made in the city, but they had been abroad almost from the week they met, and their homecoming brought a pleasure that was most wonderfully sweet and consoling.