“I cannot keep the secret much longer,” Marian thought, as she looked upon the familiar faces of her friends, and longed to hear them call her by her real name. “I will at least tell Alice who I am, and if she can convince me that Frederic would be glad, I will perhaps explain to him.”
When church was out, Mrs. Rivers, who still lived at her father’s, pressed forward for an introduction, and after it was over, whispered a few words to Frederic, who replied, “Not in the least,” so decidedly that Marian heard him, and wondered what Agnes’ remark could have been. She was not long left in doubt, for as they were riding home, Frederic turned to her and said: “Mrs. Rivers thinks you look like my wife.”
Marian’s cheeks were scarlet, as she replied:
“Josh and Hetty thought so, too, and it is possible there may be a resemblance.”
“Not the slightest,” returned Frederic, half vexed that any one should presume to liken the beautiful girl at his side to one as plain as he had always considered Marian Lindsey to be.
Leaning back in the carriage, he relapsed into a thoughtful mood, which was interrupted once by Marian’s asking “if he believed he should know his wife in case he met her accidentally?”
“Know her? Yes—from all the world!” was the hasty answer; and, wrapping his shawl still closer about him, Frederic did not speak again until they stopped at their own door.
That night, as Marian sat with Alice in their chamber, she said to the little girl:
“If you could have any wish gratified which you chose to make, what would it be?”
For an instant Alice hesitated—then her eyes filled with tears, and, and winding her arms around her teacher’s neck, she whispered: