Sunderline was silent.

"I've a chance," said Marion, "if I will take it. A chance to do
something that I like, something that I think I _could_ do. I can't
stand the shops; there's a plenty of girls that are crazy for the
places; let them have 'em. And I can't stay at home and iron lace
curtains for other folks, or go round to rip up and make over other
folks' old dirty carpets. I don't mean mother shall do it much
longer. This is what I can do: I can get on to the lecture list, for
reading and reciting. The Leverings,--you remember Virginia
Levering, who gave a reading here last winter; her father was with
her,--Hamilton Levering, the elocutionist? Well, I know them very
well; I've got acquainted with them since; they say they'll help me,
and put me forward. Mr. Levering will give me lessons and get me
some evenings. He thinks I would do well. And next year they mean to
go out West, and want me to go with them. Would you?"

Marion looked eagerly and anxiously in Sunderline's face as she
asked the question. He could not help seeing that she cared what he
might think. And on his part, he could not help caring a good deal
what she might do. He did not like to see this girl, whom he had
known and been friends with from childhood, spoilt. There was good,
honest stuff in her, in spite of her second-rate vanities and
half-bred ambitions. If she would only grow out of these, what a
womanly woman she might be! That fair, grand-featured face of hers,
what might it not come to hold and be beautiful with, if it could
once let go its little airs and consciousnesses that cramped it? It
had a finer look in it now than she thought of, as she waited with
real ingenuous solicitude, his answer.