"Please explain that Mr. Angus is only my friend. I shall see you again before long," hastened to the door. Eugene was still in the arms of the clergyman and it required much persuasion on the part of his mother to coax him to remain with her. CHAPTER XII. MARION'S SICKNESS. THE drive back to town was a silent one, and not until they were within a short distance from home was a word spoken. Mr. Angus seemed absorbed in thought, and his companion, with the added care of the friends she had just left, was little inclined for conversation. A sigh from her at last caused the gentleman to ask,— "Have I done wrong in bringing to your notice these strangers?" "No, sir. No, indeed. What a dear old lady she is! And not very old either. Sorrow, I imagine, more than time, has aged her. Eugene is a perfect dream of boyish beauty." "What of the young mother?" Marion sighed again. "I don't know. I have been trying to decide. I have seen somebody whom she resembles. She does not attract me as her mother does." "Eugene scarcely has a feature like hers." "No, he is more like you than like her." She had entirely forgotten her high praise of the boy's beauty; but a little twitching about the muscles of his mouth proved that he remembered and was far from displeased. "Do you know," she asked quickly, as they drew up to the door of her uncle's house, "that I am going to take your new parishioners to New York? For some reason, Madam Douglass prefers being there, and I have promised for you that you will aid them in their removal." "Pecuniarily, do you mean?" "Certainly not. Only as a friend, in getting to the right train, etc.; but even that is not necessary: Uncle Asbury will attend to it." "Just as you please, Miss Howard." She sprang from the carriage without giving him an opportunity to help her, and ran into the house. His voice, so sad and cold, had hurt her. Seeing no one in the hall, she went in haste to her own room, to pack her satchel for her journey home, saying to herself meanwhile,— "If he knew all that I do, and all that I can guess about his sad past, and how shamefully I have neglected my promise to that poor, dying girl, he would be justified in never speaking to me at all." At the dinner-table Marion gave a description of Madam Douglass and Eugene, merely mentioning Mrs. Cheriton as the boy's mother; and easily won a promise from her aunt to go and see them. "I wish, aunty," she added, after the conversation had turned to another subject, "that you would notice whether Mrs. Cheriton resembles any one you know. Her eyes haunt me. I have tried in vain to account for the resemblance."