etty's dress. She had no money, and
seemed afraid to ask for any. The distance between her and her husband
had been widening.

Their council of ways and means lasted a good while, including many
digressions. At last, though unwillingly, Letty accepted Mary's
proposal that a certain dress, her best indeed, though she did not say
so, which she had scarcely worn, and was not likely to miss, should be
made to fit Letty. It was a lovely black silk, the best her father had
been able to choose for her the last time he was in London. A little
pang did shoot through her heart at the thought of parting with it, but
she had too much of that father in her not to know that the greatest
honor that can be shown any _thing_, is to make it serve a _person_;
that the dearest gift of love, withheld from human necessity, is handed
over to the moth and the rust. But little idea had Letty, much as she
appreciated her kindness, what a sacrifice Mary was making for her that
she might look her own sweet self, and worthy of her renowned Tom!

When Tom came home that night, however, the look of the world and all
that is in it changed speedily for Letty, and terribly. He arrived in
great good humor--somebody had been praising his verses, and the joy of
the praise overflowed on his wife. But when, pleased as any little girl
with the prospect of a party and a new frock, she told him, with
gleeful gratitude, of the invitation and the heavenly kindness which
had rendered it possible for her to accept it, the countenance of the
great man changed. He rejected the idea of her going with him to any
gathering of his grand friends--objected most of all to her going to
Mrs. Redmain's. Alas! he had begun to allow to himself that he had
married in too great haste--and beneath him. Wherever he went, his wife
could be no credit to him, and her presence would take from him all
sense of liberty! Not choosing, however, to acknowledge either of these
objections, and not willing, besides, to appear selfish in the eyes of
the woman who had given herself to him, he was only too glad to put all
upon another, to him equally genuine ground. Controlling his irritation
for the moment, he set forth with lordly kindness the absolute
impossibility of accepting such an offer as Mary's. Could she for a
moment imagine, he said, that he would degrade himself by taking his
wife out in a dress that was not her own?

Here Letty interrupted him.

"Mary has given me the dress," she