Also there were those who had been almost persuaded, and who yet, so far as their salvation was concerned, were no nearer it that day than though they had never thought of the matter, for almost never saves a soul. All these influences combined served to make depression the predominant feeling. Marion struggled with it, and tried to be cheerful before her pupils, but sank into gravity and unusual sadness at every interval between the busy hours of the day.
Late in the afternoon she had a conversation with one of the girls which did not serve to encourage her heart. It was the drawing hour. Large numbers of the young ladies in her room had gone to the studio with the drawing master; those few who remained were engaged in copying their exercises for the next morning's class. Marion was at leisure, her only duty being to render assistance in the matter of copying wherever a raised hand indicated that help was needed.
Answering one of these calls she found herself at the extreme end of the large room, quite near to Grace Dennis' desk, and in passing she noticed that Gracie, while her book was before her and her pen in hand, was not writing at all, but that her left hand was shading a face that looked sad and pale, and covering eyes that might have tears in them. After fulfilling her duty to the needy scholar she turned back to Grace.
"What is it?" she said, softly, taking the vacant seat by Grace's side, and touching tenderly the crown of hair that covered the drooping head. Grace looked up quickly with a gleam of sunshine, through which shone a tear.
"It is a fit of the blues, I am almost afraid. I am very much ashamed of myself; I don't feel so very often, Miss Wilbur. I think the feeling must be what the girls call blues; I am not sure."
"Do you feel in any degree sure what has caused such a remarkable disease to attack you?" Marion asked, in a low, tender, yet cheery and a half-amused tone.
The words made Gracie laugh, but the tenderness in the tone seemed to start another tear.
"You will be amused at me, Miss Wilbur, or ashamed of me, I don't know which. I am ashamed of myself, but I do feel so forlorn and lonely."
"Lonely!" Marion echoed, with a little start. She realized that she herself knew in its fulness what that feeling was, but for Gracie Dennis, treasured as she was in an atmosphere of fatherly love, it was hard to understand it. "If I had my dear father I don't think I should feel lonely," she said gently.
"I know," Grace answered; "he is the dearest father a girl ever had, but there is only a little bit of him mine, Miss Wilbur. I don't mean that either; I am not selfish. I know he loves me with all his heart, but I mean his time is so very much occupied that he can only give me very little bits now and then. It has to be so; it is not his fault. I would not have him any different, even in this; but then if I had a sister, don't you see how different it would be? or even a brother, or," and here Gracie's head dropped low, and her voice quivered. "Miss Wilbur, if I had a mother, one who loved me, and would sympathize with me and help me, I think I would be the happiest girl in all the world."