“I have always thought so,” he answered, and Alice replied: “But you don’t know for certain; and I want you to promise that until you do you won’t make love to Isabel, nor marry her, nor anybody else, will you, Frederic?” and putting both her little hands upon his forehead, she pushed back his hair and waited for an answer.
Many times the young man had made that resolution, but the idea of thus promising to another was unpleasant, and he hesitated for a time; then he said:
“Suppose we never can know for certain—would you have me live all my life alone?”
“No,” said Alice, “and you needn’t, either; but I’d wait ever so long, ten years, anyway, and before that time she’ll come, I’m sure. Dinah says maybe she will, and that perhaps we shan’t know her, she’ll be so changed—so handsome,” and as if the power of prophecy were on her, Alice pictured a beautiful woman who might come to them sometime as their lost Marian, and Frederic, listening to her, felt more willing to promise than he had been before.
A glow of hope was kindled within his own bosom, and when she finished he said to her:
“I will wait, Alice—wait ten years for Marian.”
Blessed Alice! When the mother, whose grave was grass-grown now and sunken, first knew her only child was blind, she murmured against the dealings of Providence, and in the bitterness of her heart asked:
“Why was my baby born? and what good can it ever do?”
She who had questioned thus was dead, while the good the little girl was to do was becoming, each day, more and more apparent. Helpless and blind though she was, she would keep the strong man from falling, and when his heart grew faint with hope deferred, her gentle, earnest words would cheer him on to wait a little longer. Marian was not dead to her, and so sure of it did she seem that when the interview was ended, and Frederic was left alone, he bowed his head reverently and said:
“If Marian be, indeed, alive, will the good Father send me some tidings of her, and so keep me from sin?”