no idea of what she was likely or would like to do next.
But, when we are in such perplexity, may not the fact be accepted as
showing that decision is not required of us--perhaps just because our
way is at the moment being made straight for us?

Joseph called once or twice, but, for Letty's sake, they had no music.
As they met so seldom now, Mary, anxious to serve him as she could,
offered him the loan of some of her favorite books. He accepted it with
a gladness that surprised her, for she did not know how much he had of
late been reading.

One day she received an unexpected visit--from Mr. Brett, her lawyer.
He had been searching into the affairs of the shop, and had discovered
enough to make him uneasy, and indeed fill him with self-reproach that
he had not done so with more thoroughness immediately on her father's
death. He had come to tell her all he knew, and talk the matter over
with her, that they might agree what proceedings should be taken.

I will not weary myself or my readers with business detail, for which
kind of thing I have no great aptitude, and a good deal of
incapacitating ignorance; but content myself with the briefest
statement of the condition in which Mr. Brett found the affairs of Mr.
Turnbull.

He had been speculating in several companies, making haste to be rich,
and had periled and lost what he had saved of the profits of the
business, and all of Mary's as well that had not been elsewhere
secured. He had even trenched on the original capital of the firm, by
postponing the payment of moneys due, and allowing the stock to run
down and to deteriorate, and things out of fashion to accumulate, so
that the business had perceptibly fallen off. But what displeased Mary
more than anything was, that he had used money of her father's to
speculate with in more than one public-house; and she knew that, if in
her father's lifetime he had so used even his own, it would have been
enough to make him insist on dissolving partnership.

It was impossible to allow her money to remain any longer in the power
of such a man, and she gave authority to Mr. Brett to make the
necessary arrangements for putting an end to business relations between
them.

It was a somewhat complicated, therefore tedious business; and things
looked worse the further they were searched into. Unable to varnish the
facts to the experience of a professional eye, Mr. Turnbull wrote Mary
a letter almost cringing in its tone, begging her t