“She had a sweet, childish face,” said he, “fairer, sweeter than Marian’s when she went away—but Marian must have changed; for I knew that this was she.”
Then he told her of her sudden disappearance when Isabel came—of his fruitless efforts to find her, and how while searching for her, he had met another girl, whose hands reminded him of those which he had felt so many times upon his brow.
“Wasn’t that Marian?” said Alice, who had forgotten her grief in listening.
There was a mournful pathos in the tone of his voice, and it emboldened Alice to ask another question.
“Frederic,” she began, and her little hand played with his hair, as it always did when she was uncertain as to how her remarks would be received, “Frederic, ain’t you loving Marian a heap more than you did when she went away?”
Frederic did not hesitate a moment ere replying, “Yes, darling, I am, for that young girl crept away down into my heart where Marian ought to have been, before I asked her to be my wife; and I shall find her too. I only stopped long enough to come home for you. The house is ready at Riverside, and your room is charming.”
“Will Isabel be there?” was Alice’s next inquiry, and Frederic answered by telling her all he knew of the matter.
He did not say he was beginning to understand her and consequently to like her less, but Alice inferred as much, and with this fear removed from her mind, she could endure patiently to become again a pupil of Miss Huntington. For a long time they talked together, wondering who wrote the letter purporting to have come from Sarah Green, and why it had been written. Then Frederic told her of the peddler Ben, and of his sister, Marian Grey, who, at that moment, had his daguerreotype in her keeping. Of Marian Grey Alice did not say to him “She is our Marian,” for she had not such a thought, but she seemed interested both in her and in Ben, and when told that the latter had asked for her picture she consented at once, saying he should have it as soon as they were settled at Riverside.
“I would not tell any one that Marian was with me,” said Frederic, as their conversation drew to a close; “I had rather the subject should not be discussed until I really find her and bring her home; then we will set apart a day of general thanksgiving.”
To this suggestion Alice readily assented, and as the supper bell just then rang, and the two went together to the delicious repast, which Dinah had prepared with unusual care, insisting the while that “thar was nothin’ fit for nobody to eat.”