“Thank you for reminding me of that, dear. Perhaps I let my sense of personal responsibility overwhelm me too much and forget whose help I can ask.”
“May be our fears have made us over-suspicious,” suggested Marion, by way of comfort. “Coincidences are very funny sometimes, and this man may really have no interest in Elfie. How could he have even suspected she might be here of all other schools?”
“Mr. Bellamy must have been watched when he traveled and came here,” said Mrs. Abbott. “Yes, indeed, I have no doubt of this man’s mischievous purpose. And, my dear, watch the child closely, as you have watched her before; be even more watchful still. It is such a comfort to know that I can trust you to do it so fully. You pay me over and over again for bringing you here, Marion.”
Marion clasped her hands before her face in a perfect ecstasy of pleasure at these lovely words, and as Mrs. Abbott bent and kissed her fondly she threw her arms around her neck, speechless, but radiantly happy.
CHAPTER XVII.
LILY’S PREACHMENT.
“To-morrow the machinery stops for two weeks,” said Lily, as she critically examined her Sunday gown before laying it in her trunk.
“Aren’t you glad of it? I am,” said Edna, rather spitefully throwing her Ladies’ Reader into the back of a closet.
“Not so very. ’Cause why? the machinery’s got to begin again in a fortnight, and it’s hard to ‘pick up the shovel and de hoe-o-o’ after you’ve left them lie idle while you’ve ‘scraped de fiddle wid de bow-o-o,’” said and sang Lily, still poring over her crimson serge. “Ah, ha! I have him,” she continued.
“Have what?”