"Why not?"
"Couldn't! Oh Fleda! I have seen changes! He was there one afternoon, alone, and had got into difficulty with some bigger boys a little fellow, you know he stood his ground manfully, but his strength wasn't equal to his spirit, and they were tyrannizing over him after the fashion of boys, who are, I do think, the ugliest creatures in creation!" said Mme. Schwiden, not apparently reckoning her own to be of the same gender "and a gentleman, who was riding by, stopped and interfered, and took him out of their hands, and then asked him his name struck, I suppose, with his appearance. Very kind, wasn't it? men so seldom bother themselves about what becomes of children. I suppose there were thousands of others riding by at the same time."
"Very kind," Fleda said.
"When he heard what his name was, he gave his horse to his servant, and walked home with Rolf; and the next day he sent me a note, speaking of having known my father and mother, and asking permission to call upon me. I never was so mortified, I think, in my life," said Marion, after a moment's hesitation.
"Why?" said Fleda, not a little at a loss to follow out the chain of her cousin's reasoning.
"Why, I was in such a sort of a place, you don't know, Fleda; I was working then for a fancy storekeeper, to support myself living in a miserable little two rooms. If it had been a stranger, I wouldn't have cared so much, but somebody that had known us in different times. I hadn't a thing in the world to answer the note upon but a half-sheet of letter paper."
Fleda's lips sought Rolf's forehead again, with a curious rush of tears and smiles at once. Perhaps Marion had caught the expression of her countenance, for she added, with a little energy
"It is nothing to be surprised at you would have felt just the same; for I knew by his note, the whole style of it, what sort of a person it must be."
"My pride has been a good deal chastened," Fleda said, gently.
"I never want mine to be, beyond minding everything," said Marion; "and I don't believe yours is. I don't know why in the world I did not refuse to see him I had fifty minds to but he had won Rolf's heart, and I was a little curious, and it was something strange to see the face of a friend, any better one than my old landlady, so I let him come."