n
the village was telling his and her neighbour that Mary Thorne no
longer went to the house because of Lady Arabella and the young
squire.

But Beatrice, of course, came to her. What was she to say to
Beatrice? The truth! Nay, but it is not always so easy to say the
truth, even to one's dearest friends.

"But you'll come up now he has gone?" said Beatrice.

"No, indeed," said Mary; "that would hardly be pleasant to Lady
Arabella, nor to me either. No, Trichy, dearest; my visits to dear
old Greshamsbury are done, done, done: perhaps in some twenty years'
time I may be walking down the lawn with your brother, and discussing
our childish days--that is, always, if the then Mrs Gresham shall
have invited me."

"How can Frank have been so wrong, so unkind, so cruel?" said
Beatrice.

This, however, was a light in which Miss Thorne did not take any
pleasure in discussing the matter. Her ideas of Frank's fault, and
unkindness, and cruelty, were doubtless different from those of his
sister. Such cruelty was not unnaturally excused in her eyes by many
circumstances which Beatrice did not fully understand. Mary was quite
ready to go hand in hand with Lady Arabella and the rest of the
Greshamsbury fold in putting an end, if possible, to Frank's passion:
she would give no one a right to accuse her of assisting to ruin the
young heir; but she could hardly bring herself to admit that he was
so very wrong--no, nor yet even so very cruel.

And then the squire came to see her, and this was a yet harder trial
than the visit of Beatrice. It was so difficult for her to speak to
him that she could not but wish him away; and yet, had he not come,
had he altogether neglected her, she would have felt it to be unkind.
She had ever been his pet, had always received kindness from him.

"I am sorry for all this, Mary; very sorry," said he, standing up,
and holding both her hands in his.

"It can't be helped, sir," said she, smiling.

"I don't know," said he; "I don't know--it ought to be helped
somehow--I am quite sure you have not been to blame."

"No," said she, very quietly, as though the position was one quite
a matter of course. "I don't think I have been very much to blame.
There will be misfortunes sometimes when nobody is to blame."

"I do not quite understand it all," said the squire; "but if Frank--"

"Oh! we will not talk about him," said she, still laughing gently.

"You can understand, Mary, how dear he must be to me;