Marston had taught Mary; and now her
heart was like a child left alone in a great room. She had not yet
learned that we must each bear his own burden, and so become able to
bear each the burden of the other. Poor friends we are, if we are
capable only of leaning, and able never to support.

But the moment Letty's heart had thus cried out against Mary, came a
shock, and something else cried out against herself, telling her that
she was not fair to her friend, and that Mary, and no other, was the
proper person to advise with in this emergency of her affairs. She had
no right to turn from her because she was a little afraid of her.
Perhaps Letty was on the point of discovering that to be unable to bear
disapproval was an unworthy weakness. But in her case it came nowise of
the pride which blame stirs to resentment, but altogether of the
self-depreciation which disapproval rouses to yet greater dispiriting.
Praise was to her a precious thing, in part because it made her feel as
if she could go on; blame, a misery, in part because it made her feel
as if all was of no use, she never could do anything right. She had not
yet learned that the right is the right, come of praise or blame what
may. The right will produce more right and be its own reward--in the
end a reward altogether infinite, for God will meet it with what is
deeper than all right, namely, perfect love. But the more Letty
thought, the more she was sure she must tell Mary; and, disapprove as
she might, Mary was a very different object of alarm from either her
aunt or her cousin Godfrey.

The first afternoon, therefore, on which she thought her aunt could
spare her, she begged leave to go and see Mary. Mrs. Wardour yielded
it, but not very graciously. She had, indeed, granted that Miss Marston
was not like other shop-girls, but she did not favor the growth of the
intimacy, and liked Letty's going to her less than Mary's coming to
Thornwick.

CHAPTER X.

THE HEATH AND THE HUT.

Letty seldom went into the shop, except to buy, for she knew Mr.
Turnbull would not like it, and Mary did not encourage it; but now her
misery made her bold. Mary saw the trouble in her eyes, and without a
moment's hesitation drew her inside the counter, and thence into the
house, where she led the way to her own room, up stairs and through
passages which were indeed lanes through masses of merchandise, like
those cut through deep-drifted snow. It was shop all over the house,
t