Now and then the conversation became more general. Subjects of public interest were broached and commented upon by the two gentlemen, in a manner which caught Marion’s attention; for such discussions were not as strange or incomprehensible to her as to most girls of her age. Sir Ralph had the latest arrived English paper in his pocket. He glanced at it as he went along, from time to time reading out little bits for the edification of his companions. Once or twice Marion, half unconsciously, made some remark in response to his; remarks which showed that she knew what she was talking about, though, probably, of no great depth or originality. The second or third time this happened, Sir Ralph glanced at her with a slight smile of surprise and amusement. “Why, Miss Freer,” he said, “you must be a great newspaper reader! You are certainly better up on that last speech on the education question of the member for —. Bye-the-by, what place does Vere stand for?” he asked, turning to Mr. Price, who could not satisfy him on the point. “Never mind,” he went on “how is it you know so much about it, Miss Freer? As I said, you are decidedly more at home in it than Price here, and that is saying a good deal; as I haven’t, in fifteen years, succeeded in finding a subject he was not at home in.” “Nonsense, my dear boy,” said Mr. Price. “You will really make me blush, and that would look very funny on an old man like me. Would it not, Miss Sybil?” Oh! how grateful Marion was to the all-unconscious Mr. Price, for thus opportunely turning the conversation! The title of some forth-coming new book next attracted Sir Ralph’s attention, and led to an animated discussion on the previous works of the same author, in interest of which, Marion forgot her embarrassment. She little knew how keenly her fresh, bright thoughts and enquiries, uttered with perfect simplicity and self-forgetfulness, were appreciated and enjoyed by her two companions. Cultivated, nay even learned men, that they were, yet not too “fusty and musty,” as Cissy had called it, to value the clear sparkling of an unprejudiced, but not uneducated youthful intellect; and better still, the softening, beautifying radiance of a true, gentle, woman’s heart. Mr. Price, as he looked at her, wondered if the little infant daughter long ago laid to rest beside her young mother, in the far of church-yard on a Welsh hill-side would ever, had she lived, have grown to be such a one as the sweet, bright girl beside him. Sir Ralph, as he looked at her, thought to himself a “what might have been,” had he met this Marion in years gone by, before, as he fancied, youth and its sweet privileges, were over for him.