ong. If he could settle himself comfortably
in this way, why should he not do so? She was told that Edith
Brownlow was pretty, and gentle, and good, and would undoubtedly
receive from Sir Gregory's hands all that Sir Gregory could give
her. It was expedient, for the sake of the whole family, that such
a marriage should be arranged. She would not stand in the way of
it; and, indeed, how could she stand in the way of it? Had not her
engagement with Captain Marrable been dissolved at her own instance
in the most solemn manner possible? Let him marry whom he might, she
could have no ground of complaint on that score.

She was in this state of mind when she received Captain Marrable's
letter from Dunripple. When she opened it, for a moment she thought
that it would convey to her tidings respecting Miss Brownlow. When
she had read it, she told herself how impossible it was that he
should have told her of his new matrimonial intentions, even if he
entertained them. The letter gave no evidence either one way or the
other; but it confirmed to her the news which had reached her through
Parson John, that her former lover intended to abandon that special
career, his choice of which had made it necessary that they two
should abandon their engagement. When at Loring he had determined
that he must go to India. He had found it to be impossible that he
should live without going to India. He had now been staying a few
weeks at Dunripple with his uncle, and with Edith Brownlow, and it
turned out that he need not go to India at all. Then she sat down,
and wrote to him that guarded, civil, but unenthusiastic letter, of
which the reader has already heard. She had allowed herself to be
wounded and made sore by what they had told her of Edith Brownlow.

It was still early in the spring, just in the middle of April, when
Mary received another letter from her friend at Bullhampton, a letter
which made her turn all these things in her mind very seriously. If
Walter Marrable were to marry Edith Brownlow, what sort of future
life should she, Mary Lowther, propose to herself? She was firmly
resolved upon one thing, that it behoved her to look rather to what
was right than to what might simply be pleasant. But would it be
right that she should consider herself to be, as it were, widowed by
the frustration of an unfortunate passion? Life would still be left
to her,--such a life as that which her aunt lived,--such a life, with
this exception, that wh