ly, young people should have
opportunities of understanding each other. Anyhow, marriage is a heavy
penalty to pay for such an indiscretion. A girl might like a young man
well enough to enjoy a talk with him now and then, and yet find it hard
to marry him."

"Did you come here to dispute social customs with me, Miss Marston?"
said Godfrey. "I am not prepared, nor, indeed, sufficiently interested,
to discuss them with you."

"I will come to the point at once," answered Mary; who, although
speaking so collectedly, was much frightened at her own boldness:
Godfrey seemed from his knowledge so far above her, and she owed him so
much.--"Would it not be possible for Letty to return here? Then the
thing might take its natural course, and Tom and she know each other
better before they did what was irrevocable. They are little better
than children now."

"The thing is absolutely impossible," said Godfrey, and haughtily rose
from his chair like one in authority ending an interview. "But," he
added, "you have been put to great expense for the foolish girl, and,
when she leaves you, I desire you will let me know--"

"Thank you, Mr. Wardour!" said Mary, who had risen also. "As you have
now given a turn to the conversation which is not in the least
interesting to me, I wish you a good evening."

With the words, she left the room. He had made her angry at last. She
trembled so that, the instant she was out of sight of the house, she
had to sit down for dread of falling.

Godfrey remained in the room where she left him, full of indignation.
Ever since that frightful waking, he had brooded over the injury--the
insult, he counted it--which Letty had heaped upon him. A great
tenderness toward her, to himself unknown, and of his own will
unbegotten, remained in his spirit. When he passed the door of her
room, returning from that terrible ride, he locked it, and put the key
in his pocket, and from that day no one entered the chamber. But, had
he loved Letty as purely as he had loved her selfishly, he would have
listened to Mary pleading in her behalf, and would have thought first
about her well-being, not about her character in the eyes of the world.
He would have seen also that, while the breath of the world's opinion
is a mockery in counterpoise with a life of broken interest and the
society of an unworthy husband, the mere fact of his mother's receiving
her again at Thornwick would of itself be enough to reestablish her
position i