“No one,” she answered, and with a vague feeling of disappointment, he led her into the house.
Alice’s heart was full that night, for accidentally she had heard old Hetty and Lyd discussing the probable result of Isabel’s sojourn among them, and the very idea shocked her, as if they had trampled on Marian’s grave.
“I’ll tell Frederic,” said she to herself, “and ask him is he going to marry her,” and when after his supper he went into the library to read the letters which Mrs. Huntington told him were there, she followed him thither.
It was not Frederic’s nature to pet or notice children much, but in his sorrow he had learned to love the little helpless girl dearly, and when he saw her standing beside him with a wistful look upon her face, he smoothed her soft brown hair and said: “What does my blind bird want?”
“Take me in your lap,” said Alice, “so I can feel your heart beat and know if you tell me true.”
He complied with her request, and laying her head against his bosom, she began, “be we much related?”
“Second cousins, that’s all.”
“But you love me, don’t you?”
“Yes, very much.”
“And I love you a heap,” returned the little girl. “I didn’t use to, though—till Marian went away. Frederic, Marian isn’t dead!” and, lifting up her head, Alice looked at him with a truthful, earnest look, which seemed to say that she believed what she asserted.