The girl assented eagerly.
“When you see Lotty Severn next—(You are returning to school soon?” “The day after to-morrow,” said Maria)—“tell her that, without her knowing it, dear Sybil’s last message has been delivered. Tell her, too, that Marion Freer has never forgotten her two little pupils and will always love them. And if, dear Miss Baxter, you will continue to how kindness to poor Lotty, it will be very good of you. You will have my gratitude if no one’s else.”
“You may be sure I will do all I can for her,” said the girl warmly. “And I will give her your message.”
“Thank you very much,” said Marion, adding, as she was obliged to turn towards the rest of the company, for the gentlemen had just entered the room, and Mr. Baxter was bearing down upon her, “You won’t mind my asking you not to mention what we have been talking about to any one?”
“Certainly, I will not,” answered Maria. “I would not have done so even if you had not asked it.” For the girl felt instinctively that her disclosure had trenched on sacred ground, and from what she had gathered of Mrs. Baldwin’s history from Geoffrey’s allusions during dinner, she was quite aware that it had been a somewhat eventful one.
“Thank you,” again said Marion, and for an instant pressed the young girl’s hand in her own.
And the poor clerk’s beautiful wife and the rich man’s young daughter, though they had never seen each other before, and would, probably enough, never see each other again, felt more like friends than many women who have lived for years in each other’s constant companionship.
[CHAPTER] X.
LITTLE MARY’S ADVENT.
“But the child that is born on a Sabbath day
Is blithe and bonny and wise and gay.”