"I have wanted everything except trouble. I have done everything except ask alms. I have learned, Fleda, that death is not the worst form in which distress can come."
Fleda felt stung, and bent down her head to touch her lips to the brow of little Rolf.
"Death would have been a trifle!" said Marion. "I mean not that I should have wished to leave Rolf alone in the world; but if I had been left I mean I would rather wear outside than inside mourning."
Fleda looked up again, and at her.
"Oh, I was so mistaken, Fleda!" she said, clasping her hands "so mistaken! in everything; so disappointed in all my hopes. And the loss of my fortune was the cause of it all."
Nay, verily! thought Fleda, but she said nothing; she hung her head again; and Marion, after a pause, went on to question her about an endless string of matters concerning themselves and other people, past doings and present prospects, till little Rolf, soothed by the uninteresting soft murmur of voices, fairly forgot bread and butter and himself in a sound sleep, his head resting upon Fleda.
"Here is one comfort for you, Marion," she said, looking down at the dark eyelashes which lay on a cheek rosy and healthy as ever seven years old knew; " he is a beautiful child, and I am sure, a fine one."
"It is thanks to his beauty that I have ever seen home again," said his mother.
Fleda had no heart this evening to speak words that were not necessary; her eyes asked Marion to explain herself.
"He was in Hyde Park one day I had a miserable lodging not far from it, and I used to let him go in there, because he must go somewhere, you know I couldn't go with him "