"
"Dreadful?" repeated Marjorie. "It is being lost away from Christ."
"Mrs. Rheid told Hollis that you were going into a decline, that mother
said so, and Will and I were planning what we could do for you."
"Nobody need plan now," smiled Marjorie. "Shall we have some music? We'll
sing Will's hymns."
"How your voice sounds!"
"That's why I want to sing. I want to pour it all out."
The next evening Hollis accompanied Linnet on her way to Marjorie's to
spend the evening. Marjorie's pale face and mourning dress had touched
him deeply. He had taught a class of boys near her class in Sunday
school, and had been struck with the dull, mechanical tone in which she
had questioned the attentive little girls who crowded around her.
It was not Marjorie; but it was the Marjorie who had lost Morris and her
father. Was she so weak that she sank under grief? In his thought she was
always strong. But it was another Marjorie who met him at the gate the
next evening; the cheeks were still thin, but they were tinted and there
was not a trace of yesterday's dullness in face or voice; it was a joyful
face, and her voice was as light-hearted as a child's. Something had
wrought a change since yesterday.
Such a quiet, unobtrusive little figure in a black and white gingham,
with a knot of black ribbon at her throat and a cluster of white roses in
her belt. Miss Prudence had done her best with the little country girl,
and she was become only a sweet and girlish-looking woman; she had not
marked out for herself a "career"; she had done nothing that no other
girl might do.
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