“Certainly,” said Marion, still in her calm, clear voice. “And I think she will cling to him even more closely in his trouble, for I am sure Ralph would never do a dishonest deed. There must be a mistake. Oh, I am almost sure of it.” “I have tried hard to think so, for he is my sister’s child,” said Mrs. Haley, sadly. “Oh, the suspicion is dreadful. I wish I could overcome it.” As soon as their visitor was gone, poor little Dollie burst out crying. “Oh, Marion, he took it,” she whispered, faintly. “He stole it for us when I was sick and we had no money.” “It is dreadful,” said Marion, in a broken voice. “Oh, why couldn’t he see that it was better for us to starve. Poor Ralph, I forgive him, but, oh, I wish he hadn’t done it. And to think we have promised to say nothing about it.” Dollie grew so sick after this that Marion was terribly alarmed. A chill came on, followed by a raging fever. Marion looked in her purse. There was just three dollars left. Without the slightest hesitation she ran for a doctor. That night when Dollie was more quiet she went out for a short walk. She felt that she must be alone where she could think over the situation. That hundred dollars must be earned and returned to Ralph. She clenched her hands together as she came to this decision. As she turned a corner she saw a group of people just before her all standing around a man who appeared to be a street preacher. As Marion came nearer she recognized Mr. Haley’s voice. He was talking earnestly and sensibly in his eloquent manner. At the close of his exhortation he started a hymn. It was an old familiar air that Marion had known all her life, and in an instant it took her back to her home in the country. For just one brief minute the old farm rose up before her. Then came a vision of Silas Johnson turning the old people out and then she thought suddenly of Dollie and her own utter helplessness. A wave of emotion swept through every fibre of her body. She must give vent to her sorrow or go mad with grief. Before she knew it her lips were opened and she joined heart and soul in the singing. CHAPTER XIII. MARION’S FIRST ENGAGEMENT AS A SINGER. At the very moment in which Marion opened her lips to sing two men turned the corner of the street, walking directly toward the preacher. One was a man of thirty, of Hebrew origin, whose affluent circumstances were plainly apparent. The other was a German, well dressed, but vulgar in appearance, and wearing a diamond stud that resembled the headlight of an engine. “I tell you, we’d beat them hands down if it wasn’t for Carlotta,” the German was saying. “We open the same night, and we’ve got to beat them! And we can do it if we can get one more first-class singer.” “If I could only have got Carlotta to sing my song,” said his companion, sighing, “it would have been the hit of the evening, but it was just my luck not to get her.”