“Poor Will,” sighed, “he did lose a prize when he lost Marian Grey.”
Involuntarily his mind went back to Redstone Hall, and to the time when another Marian sat opposite, and did for him the office this one was doing. The contrast between the two was great, but, with a nobleness worthy of the man, he thought “Marian Grey is far more beautiful, ’tis true, but Marian Lindsey was my wife.”
Then he remembered the day when Isabel first sat at his board, and he had felt it a sin to look at her in all her queenly beauty. He had grown hard since then, for he could not think it wicked to look at Marian Grey, or deem it a wrong to the other one, and he feasted his eyes upon her until she arose from the table, and went, at Alice’s request, to see the cat, which was safely confined in a candle box, “by way of taming her,” Alice said.
“I think there’s no need of that,” returned Marian, stroking her soft coat. “I am sure she will not run away. What do you propose calling her?”
“Marian, I reckon, only you might not want her named after you, and it wouldn’t be, for it’s the other one.”
“I haven’t the least objection,” said Miss Grey, laughing, “only Marian will sound oddly. Suppose you call it ‘Spottie,’ there’s a cunning white spot between its eyes.”
“Yes, Alice, let that be the name,” said a voice behind them, and turning, Marian saw Frederic, who had all the time been standing near and watching them as like two children they knelt together by the candle box and gave the cat its milk—Marian and Alice, side by side, just as they used to be of old—just as Frederic had seen them many a time.
The tableau was a familiar one, and so he felt it to be, though he could not divine the reason. The tall, beautiful girl before him bore no resemblance to the Marian of Redstone Hall, and still nothing she did seemed strange or new to him.
“I certainly have dreamed of her,” he said, when lifting up her head she shook back from her face the clustering curls, and smiled on Alice as she used to do. “I have dreamed of her just as I sometimes dream of places, and see them afterward in waking.”
This conclusion was entirely satisfactory, and she returned with the girls to the parlor, while “Spottie” followed after, hovering near to Marian, whose low spoken words and gentle caresses had reawakened the affection which had perhaps been dormant during the last year.