porter was departed, but had left the door wide. She had seen
him but once since Letty's marriage, and then his salutation was like
that of a dead man in a dream; for in his sore heart he still imagined
her the confidante of Letty's deception.

But the shadow of her father's absence swallowed all the other shadows.
The air of warmth and peace and conscious safety which had hitherto
surrounded her was gone, and in its place cold, exposure, and
annoyance. Between them her father and she had originated a mutually
protective atmosphere of love; when that failed, the atmosphere of
earthly relation rushed in and enveloped her. The moment of her
father's departure, malign influences, inimical to the very springs of
her life, concentrated themselves upon her: it was the design of John
Turnbull that she should not be comfortable so long as she did not
irrevocably cast in her lot with his family; and, the rest in the shop
being mostly creatures of his own choice, by a sort of implicit
understanding they proceeded to make her uncomfortable. So long as they
confined themselves to silence, neglect, and general exclusion, Mary
heeded little their behavior, for no intercourse with them, beyond that
of external good offices, could be better than indifferent to her; but,
when they advanced to positive interference, her position became indeed
hard to endure. They would, for instance, keep watch on her serving,
and, as soon as the customer was gone, would find open fault with this
or that she had said or done. But even this was comparatively
endurable: when they advanced to the insolence of doing the same in the
presence of the customer, she found it more than she could bear with
even a show of equanimity. She did her best, however; and for some time
things went on without any symptom of approaching crisis. But it was
impossible this should continue; for, had she been capable of endless
endurance, her persecutors would only have gone on to worse. But Mary
was naturally quick-tempered, and the chief trouble they caused her was
the control of her temper; for, although she had early come to
recognize the imperative duty of this branch of self-government, she
was not yet perfect in it. Not every one who can serve unboundedly can
endure patiently; and the more gentle some natures, the more they
resent the rudeness which springs from an opposite nature; absolutely
courteous, they flame at discourtesy, and thus lack of the perfection
to which pa