o! If
the house of Durnmelling had but been one story higher, that she might
see all round Thornwick!

For some time now, as I have already more than hinted, Sepia had been
fashioning a man to her thrall--Mewks, namely, the body-servant of Mr.
Redmain. It was a very gradual process she had adopted, and it had been
the more successful. It had got so far with him that whatever Sepia
showed the least wish to understand, Mewks would take endless trouble
to learn for her. The rest of the servants, both at Durnmelling and in
London, were none of them very friendly with her--least of all Jemima,
who was now with her mistress as lady's-maid, the accomplished
attendant whom Hesper had procured in place of Mary being away for a
holiday.

The more Sepia realized, or thought she realized, the position she was
in, the more desirous was she to get out of it, and the only feasible
and safe way, in her eyes, was marriage: there was nothing between that
and a return to what she counted slavery. Rather than lift again such a
hideous load of irksomeness, she would find her way out of a world in
which it was not possible, she said, to be both good and comfortable:
she had, in truth, tried only the latter. But if she could, she
thought, secure for a husband this gentleman-yeoman, she might hold up
her head with the best. Even if Galofta should reappear, she would know
then how to meet him: with a friend or two, such as she had never had
yet, she could do what she pleased! It was hard work to get on quite
alone--or with people who cared only for themselves! She must have some
love on her side! some one who cared for _her_!

From all she could learn, there was nothing that amounted even to
ordinary friendship between Mr. Wardour and the young widow. She was in
the family but as a distant poor relation--"Much as I am myself!"
thought Sepia, with a bitter laugh that even in her own eyes she should
be comparable to a poor creature like Letty. The fact, however,
remained that Godfrey was a little altered toward her: she must have
been telling him something against her--something she had heard from
that detestable little hypocrite who was turned away on suspicion of
theft! Yes--that was how Sepia talked _to herself_ about Mary.

One morning, Letty, finding she had an hour's leisure, for her aunt did
not pursue her as of old time, wandered out to the oak on the edge of
the ha-ha, so memorable with the shadowy presence of her Tom. She had
not b