nature drew itself together, confronting the destroyer, whatever he
might be, in possession of Letty. How to help she could not yet tell,
but sympathy was already at its work.

"You are not looking your best, Letty," she said, clasping her again in
her arms.

With a little choking, Letty assured her she was quite well, only
rather overcome with the pleasure of seeing her so unexpectedly.

"How is Mr. Helmer?" asked Mary.

"Quite well--and very busy," answered Letty--a little hurriedly, Mary
thought. "--But," she added, in a tone of disappointment, "you always
used to call him Tom!"

"Oh!" answered Mary, with a smile, "one must be careful how one takes
liberties with married people. A certain mysterious change seems to
pass over some of them; they are not the same somehow, and you have to
make your acquaintance with them all over again from the beginning."

"I shouldn't think such people's acquaintance worth making over again,"
said Letty.

"How can you tell what it may be worth?" said Mary, "--they are so
different from what they were? Their friendship may now be one that
won't change so easily."

"Ah! don't be hard on me, Mary. I have never ceased to love you."

"I am _so_ glad!" answered Mary. "People don't generally take much to
me--at least, not to come _near_ me. But you can _be_ friends without
_having_ friends," she added, with a sententiousness she had inherited.

"I don't quite understand you," said Letty, sadly; "but, then, I never
could quite, you know. Tom finds me very stupid."

These words strengthened Mary's suspicion, from the first a
probability, that all was not going well between the two; but she
shrunk from any approach to confidences with _one_ of a married pair.
To have such, she felt instinctively, would be a breach of unity,
except, indeed, that were already, and irreparably, broken. To
encourage in any married friend the placing of a confidence that
excludes the other, is to encourage that friend's self-degradation. But
neither was this a fault to which Letty could have been tempted; she
loved her Tom too much for it: with all her feebleness, there was in
Letty not a little of childlike greatness, born of faith.

But, although Mary would make Letty tell nothing, she was not the less
anxious to discover, that she might, if possible, help. She would
observe: side-lights often reveal more than direct illumination. It
might be for Letty, and not for Mrs. Redmain, she had been sent. H