Marian Grey

by Mary Jane Holmes

Marian was in a mood for anything, and turning to the piano she dashed off into a merry, spirited thing, to which Will’s feet kept time, while Ellen looked on amazed at the white fingers which flew like lightning over the keys, seemingly never resting for an instant upon any one of them, but lighting here and there with a rapidity she never before seen equalled. It was the outpouring of Marian’s heart, and the tune she played was a song of jubilee for the glad tidings she had heard. Ere she had half finished, Will Gordon was at her side, gazing wonderingly into her face, which sparkled and glowed with her excitement.

“She is strangely beautiful,” he thought, and so he said to Ellen when they were walking home together.

“She looks very well,” returned Ellen, “but I trust you will not feel it your duty to fall in love with her on that account. Wouldn’t it be ridiculous though, for you, who profess never to have felt the least affection for any woman, to yield at once to Mary’s governess?”

“Mary’s governess is no ordinary person,” answered Will. “How like the mischief she made those fingers go in that last piece. I never saw anything like it;” and he tried in vain to whistle a few bars of the lively strain.

That night three men dreamed of Marian—Will Gordon in his bachelor apartments, which he had said should never be invaded with a female’s wardrobe—Ben Burt in his room at the Lovejoy Hotel—and Frederic Raymond in his cheerful home upon the Hudson. But to Marian, sleeping so quietly in her chamber there came a thought of only one, and that one Frederic Raymond, whose picture lay beneath her pillow. She had never placed it there until to-night, for she had felt that she had no right to do so. But Mr. Gordon’s words had effected a change. He said that Frederic was beginning to love her at last—that he had sought for her without success—that he would give almost anything to find her. It is true she could not reconcile all this with her preconceived opinion: but she had no wish to doubt it, and she accepted it as truth, thinking it was probably a very recent thing with him, this searching after and loving her.

Very rapidly and pleasantly to Marian did the first few weeks of her sojourn with Mrs. Sheldon pass away. She was interested in her pupils, two bright-faced little girls, and doubly interested in their brother, the brown-eyed Fred, whose real name she learned was Frederic Raymond, he having been called, Mrs. Sheldon said, after Williams particular friend, who spent his winters in Kentucky, and his Summers at Riverside, a delightful place on the Hudson. Frederic Raymond was a frequent subject of conversation in Mrs. Sheldon’s family, and once, after Marian had been there four or five months, and Will, as usual, was spending an evening there, the matter was discussed at length, while Marian, sitting partly in the shade, so that the working of her features could not be seen, dropped stitch after stitch in the cloud she was crocheting, and finally stopped altogether as the conversation proceeded.

“I am positive,” said Mrs. Sheldon, “that I saw Mrs. Raymond in the cars, between Albany and Newburg. It was four years ago, last Autumn, and about that time she came away. There was a very young girl sitting before me, dressed in black, with long red curls, and she looked as if she had wept all her tears away, though they fell like rain when I spoke to her and asked her what was the matter. I remember her particularly from her question, ‘Is New York a heap noisier than Albany or Buffalo?’”

“That ‘heap’ is purely Southern,” interrupted Will, while his sister continued:

“She said she had but one friend in the world, and that one was in New York. I remember, too, that one of her hands was ungloved. It was so white and small, and she used it so often to brush her tears away.”

Here Will glanced involuntarily at the beautiful little hands busy with the cloud. It might have been fancy, but he thought they trembled, and so he closed the register and opened a door, thinking the heat of the room might have made Miss Grey nervous—and he was growing very careful of her comfort!