Mary Marston

r Mary, she went to the Baptist chapel; it was her custom, rendered holy by the companionship of her father. But this day it was wit

, and not out of his height; and Mary was better justified in feeling bored than even when George Turnbull plagued her with his vulgar attentions. When she got out at last, sedate as she was, she could hardly help skipping along the street by her father's side. Far better than chapel was their nice little cold dinner together, in their only sitting-room, redolent of the multifariou

satisfied with her, Mary did not care a straw for the world besides. She was too much occupied with obedience to trouble her head about opinion, either her own or other people's. Not until a question comes puzzling and troubling us so as to paralyze the energy of our obedience is there any necessity for

town, eager for the fields and the trees, but in some dread of finding Tom Helmer at the stile; for he was such a fool, she said to herself, that there was no knowing what he might do, for all she

r meant it, then are they all idolaters, and have but a careless Father. Sweet earthy odors rose about Mary from the wet ground; the rain-drops glittered on the grass and corn-blades and hedgerows; a soft damp wind breathed rather than blew about the gaps and gates; with an upward springing, like that

t against a gentleman, had he been as blind as she; but, his back being to the sun, he saw her perfectly, and stepped out of her way into the midst of a patch of s

s of a simple soul discovering itself the cause of catastr

with a laugh of amusement. "I oughtn't to have pu

ed his hat, a

s in mud on her account. As I have already said, except in the shop she had never before spoken to Mr.

's mother, that she had seen the growth of an intimacy between the two young women. The society of a shopwoman, she often remarked, was far from suitable for one who, as the daughter of a professional man, might lay claim to the position of a gentlewoman. For Letty was the orphan daughter of a country surgeon, a

f a loved cousin, must not presume upon that, or forget that the wife and mother of long-descended proprietors of certain acres of land was greatly the superior of any man who lived by the exercise of the best-educated and most

tried to understand her aunt's position with regard to her friend. "Sh

ling; "but, if they are not nice, then they are not like Mary. She's downrig

ed Mrs. Wardour, "but it d

"on Sundays you could not tell the differ

y the application of the word. I am scarcely bound to speak of my cook as a lady because letters come addressed to her as Miss Tozer. If the word

ns, which were not half so muddled as she thought them, had been busy feeling

s. Wardour, but with doubled stiffnes

her, aunt, if she

her to my house. Yet such is the respect paid to money in these degenerate days that many a one will court the society of a person like that

ere is a Rimmon as

l matter nowadays, except to old-fashioned people like myself. Not how but how much ,

but, if Mrs. Cropper is not a lady, how can Mary Marston not be one? S

" replied Mrs. Wardour, enveloping her nothin

?" ventured Letty, with a little p

he discovery that, like most social difficulties, hers was merely one of the upper strata of a question whose foundation lies far too deep for what is called Society to p

erself in the way of seeing her as often as she came, ostensibly to herself that she might prevent any deterioration of intercourse; and although she always, on these occasions, played the grand lady, with a stateliness that seem

on; and this same Sunday afternoon, as they sat in the arbor at the end of the long yew hedge in the old garden, it had come up again between them; for

d she, constituted as she is, receive such as me? The moment she did so, she would cease to be what she is; and, if all be true that one hears of her, she does me a kindness in excluding me. What can it matter to me, Letty, whether they call me a lady or not, so long as Jesus says Daughter to me? It reminds me of what I heard my father say once to Mr. Turnbull, when he had been protesting that none but church people ought to be buried in the churchyards. 'I don't care

n and wind as he walked, grew more and more hideous at the end of his new gray trousers; the other, the occurring suspicion that the girl must be Letty's new shopkeeping friend, Miss Marston, on her way to visit her. What a sweet, simple young woman she was! he thought; and straightway began to argue with h

small adventure, and the conversation had again tu

is!" said Mary, with the

nk so?" ret

hink so?" re

ought about it,"

as such a straightforward

etty. "But, to tell the truth, I should feel it as impertinent of me to criticise Cousin Godfrey's person as

d Mary. "There is that a

rybody, even his mother, is as anxious to please him as if he were an emperor, he is the easiest person to

talks to you som

me before he began, though. Now he is always giving me something to read. I wish he wouldn't;

row gap in the yew hedge, near to the arbor, Godfr

ch. His features were not regular, but that is of little consequence where there is unity. His face indicated faculty and

pectfully as

startled at sight of me?" he said, with a smile. "You

nd coloring as she spoke. "I was only saying I could not help being frightened wh

Allow me to say you are very far from stupid. Nobody can understand ev

murmured the n

iss Marston. For the sake of your dresses, I will go

to read to us," said Letty, who wanted her frien

," said Mary, when his retreating steps had cea

to look stupid

long as I was learning," returned Mary.

ousin Godfrey," said Let

to us again!" said Mary.

the name of when you have heard it-at least that's the way with me. I wonder if h

how he talks to

Cousin Letty! He ca

he talks to you in th

dare s

t w

se. It would be such a relief. I am sure I should understand

med-makes me feel as if I must ask, 'Is it that you are a fool,

r eyes were full of thought, but she paused a long time

ke any man for a fool who

ovely. In her manner there was an indescribably taking charm, of which it is not easy to give an impression; but I think it sprang from a constitutional humility, partly ruined into a painful and haunting sense of inferiority, for which she imagined herself to blame. Hence there dwelt in her eyes a

he seemed thoughtfully searching as he came. When they saw him the girls instinctively moved farther from each other

s now, Letty," he said, and t

he had been threatening her with a small

our brains only, Letty, but you

g a little frightened; and she was glad

condition of a godless universe all at once awakened to the knowledge of the causelessness of its own existence. Slowly, with due i

do you think of that? There's a

gether perplexed, and

rs. He glanced at Mary. She was white as death, her lips quivered, an

e said. "I never rea

hing like it,

remarked Mary-for she heard plenty of theolo

her, then at the

e necessity of the supposition

is there no God?" He answered, "There is none!" The whole Shadow of each then shuddered, not the breast alone; and one after the oth

stand,"

said Letty, looking at her

pting herself, "I do think I understand it a little. If M

ed Godfrey, casting on her a

then came, fearful for the heart, the dead Children who had been awakened in the Churchyard, into the temple, and cast themselves before the high Form on the Altar, and said, 'Jesus, have we no Fa

n and out of the arbor, and Mary vaguel

s she spoke, she pressed her hand on her heart, "for something kept going through and through me; but I can not say

d it to her, and began to

rose

th us, I hope, Miss M

h a powerful fermentation, and she longed to be alone. In the fiel

in the midst of a well-known and ordinary landscape, comes without warning up

d more than reason in their jubilation. For the first time she heard the full chord of intellectual and emotional delight. What a place her chamber would be, if she could there read such things! How easy would it be then to bear the troubles of the hour, the vulgar humor of Mr. Turnbull, and the tiresome attentions of George! Would Mr. Wardour lend her the book? Had he other books a