to know that by this time."

Mary said no more. She knew Mrs. Helmer was not a mother to deserve her
boy's confidence, any more than to gain it; for she treated him as if
she had made him, and was not satisfied with her work.

"When are you going to see Letty, Miss Marston?" resumed Helmer, after
a brief pause of angry feeling.

"Next Sunday evening probably."

"Take me with you."

"Take you with me! What are you dreaming of, Mr. Helmer?"

"I would give my bay mare for a good talk with Letty Lovel," he
returned.

Mary made no reply.

"You won't?" he said petulantly, after a vain pause of expectation.

"Won't what?" rejoined Miss Marston, as if she could not believe him in
earnest.

"Take me with you on Sunday?"

"No," she answered quietly, but with sober decision.

"Where would be the harm?" pleaded the youth, in a tone mingled of
expostulation, entreaty, and mortification.

"One is not bound to do everything there would be no harm in doing,"
answered Miss Marston. "Besides, Mr. Helmer, I don't choose to go out
walking with you of a Sunday evening."

"Why not?"

"For one thing, your mother would not like it. You know she would not."

"Never mind my mother. She's nothing to you. She can't bite you.--Ask
the dentist. Come, come! that's all nonsense. I shall be at the stile
beyond the turnpike-gate all the afternoon--waiting till you come."

"The moment I see you--anywhere upon the road--that moment I shall turn
back.--Do you think," she added with half-amused indignation, "I would
put up with having all the gossips of Testbridge talk of my going out
on a Sunday evening with a boy like you?"

Tom Helmer's face flushed. He caught up the gloves, threw the price of
them on the counter, and walked from the shop, without even a good
night.

"Hullo!" cried George Turnbull, vaulting over the counter, and taking
the place Helmer had just left opposite Mary; "what did you say to the
fellow to send him off like that? If you do hate the business, you
needn't scare the customers, Mary."

"I don't hate the business, you know quite well, George. And if I did
scare a customer," she added, laughing, as she dropped the money in the
till, "it was not before he had done buying."

"That may be; but we must look to to-morrow as well as to-day. When is
Mr. Helmer likely to come near us again, after such a wipe as you must
have given him to make him go off like that?"

"Just to-morrow, George, I fancy," answered Mary