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“What’s the best thing in the world?

Something out of it, I think.”

—Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

From Genoa there came a note to Marion:—

“Dear friend Marion:

To-day’s mail brings me saddest and most unexpected news. I believed my Aunt Hilda would live years; I would not have left her had I thought she would be taken so soon. She died in Summer Avenue before she could be taken to Bensalem. Judith has written herself, the bravest child’s letter. She is in Bensalem with two old aunts of her mother.

Roger hopes to have you for his housekeeper; you will be near Judith; will you take her under your wing? Her mother especially wished her not to go to boarding-school. She has always been a child of promise; she may fizzle out as promising children do and become only an ordinary girl; but she will always be sweet and brave, which is better than being brilliant. One sweet woman is worth a thousand brilliant ones; that is the reason there are so many more sweet ones. I would change my plans and return for her sake, but what can a bachelor cousin do for her? She will be sheltered from harmful influences in Bensalem. She will write me regularly. I have written to Roger about her money affairs.

Your friend,

Don.”

In reply Marion wrote the briefest note:—

“Dear friend Don:

I will do my best for Judith.

Yours truly,

Marion.”

“It will be the best thing in the world for Marion,” replied the voice of Marion’s mother.

“There is no best thing in the world for Marion,” Marion told herself wearily, rising from the back parlor sofa, where she had thrown herself to be alone, and stepping softly across the room to the door.

To be alone in the dark was the best thing in the world for her; to be alone in the dark forever. For something had happened to her that had never happened to any girl before. With a light tread she went up stairs: she would not have her mother know that she had overheard the remark made to her father—her mother could not know all, only herself and Don Mackenzie knew her cruel secret; he would never tell, not even Roger, and she could sooner die than let the words pass her lips to any human creature. Girls had gone through terrible things before; but no girl ever had gone through this; no girl could, unless she were like herself, and no girl was like herself, so impetuous, so headlong, so frank that frankness became a sin.

In her own chamber she found the darkness and solitude she craved; the darkness and solitude she thought she would crave forever. The voices in the front parlor went on low and steadily, planning a best thing for Marion for whom no best was possible.

“Yes, it will certainly be a good thing,” her father answered in a relieved tone; “she hasn’t been herself since Donald Mackenzie went away.”

“I was afraid when he came,” was the low uttered response.

“Mothers are always afraid,” returned the father, who had urged his coming.

“But I was specially afraid; Don is so attractive, so unconscious of himself, and I know Marion well enough to know that she would make an ideal of him—”

“Nonsense,” was the sharp interruption.

“It may be nonsense, but it is true; it has proved true. Marion is imaginative, as I was at her age: I know how I idealized you—”

“And the reality of me broke your heart,” he said, with a light, fond laugh.

“Yes. Sometimes it did. But I lived through it and learned that you were human, and deliciously human, and, if you will allow me to say so, a great improvement on my girlish ideal.”

“At any rate, I was not afraid to let you try,” he answered; “but Don has gone without giving her the trial. I suspect he saw it and went.”

“I know he did,” said Marion’s mother.

“Does Roger know it?” asked Marion’s father.

“Roger always knows everything and looks as if he knew nothing,” replied the motherly voice; “I think he was relieved when Don went away.”

“You think she will soon get over it?” her father asked. It would have broken Marion’s heart to hear the solicitude in her father’s voice.

“I’m afraid there’s no ‘over it’ for a girl like her; but she is plucky enough to get through it; the worst of it is, Don is such a fine fellow.”

“He had no right to care for her—” her father began angrily.

“He couldn’t help that,” argued her mother.

“Then he should care more, and be a man, and speak his mind—”

“I think he must care for some one else; if he hadn’t he couldn’t resist Marion.”

“Marion is like other girls,” said Marion’s father impatiently; “not a whit prettier—”

“No, not prettier,” she assented, with protest in her tone.

“Or more accomplished,” he insisted.

“She hasn’t accomplishments, beside her fine education, and music—”

“All girls play, I suppose he sees other girls—”

“And she saw but one man. That was the trouble. I wonder how fathers and mothers can help that. Roger wanted him to come to board through the winter, said a boarding-house was dismal, and his mother had just died—well, we can’t help it now. Don has cared for all the children—he was great friends with Maurice and John. If she will go to Bensalem and keep house for Roger, it will be just the thing.”

“I think so myself,” he answered, reasonably.

“Roger will be only too happy; his sister Marion has always been his sweetheart.”

“Bensalem will do,” replied her father, hopefully, shifting all his responsibility; “when we visit them next summer she will be as rosy as ever and singing about the house like a bird.”

“Then Roger must accept that call,” decided Roger’s mother positively. “A year in the country will brush off his student ways—it will be the best thing in the world for both of them.”

“And poor Bensalem?”

“It isn’t poor Bensalem,” she retorted, indignantly. “They knew what they wanted when they called Roger.”

“Roger is a good boy, but he isn’t the least bit brilliant,” said Roger’s father, cheerfully.

“He is something better,” said Roger’s mother.

“But how can you get along without her?”

“Better than Roger can. Besides, Martha and Lou will soon be through school; Roger and Marion are not our only children.”

“You talk as though they were, sometimes,” he retorted. “Anyhow, let the sky fall, but do something for Marion.”