"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--"
"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 man-fully, 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 store-keeper, 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."