ss M. Grigaud says it is well done. He says that
if it came quite right I should compose French as well as
M. Fenelon, which of course I cannot expect.
I will now say good-bye, and I am yours most
affectionately,
MARY SNOW.
There was nothing in this letter to give any offence to Felix Graham,
and so he acknowledged to himself. He made himself so acknowledge,
because on the first reading of it he had felt that he was half angry
with the writer. It was clear that there was nothing in the letter
which would justify censure;--nothing which did not, almost, demand
praise. He would have been angry with her had she limited her filial
donation to the half-crown which Mrs. Thomas had thought appropriate.
He was obliged to her for that attention to her French which he had
specially enjoined. Nothing could be more proper than her allusion to
the Staveleys;--and altogether the letter was just what it ought to
be. Nevertheless it made him unhappy and irritated him. Was it well
that he should marry a girl whose father was "indeed very bad, but
especially about his shoes?" Staveley had told him that connection
would be necessary for him, and what sort of a connection would this
be? And was there one word in the whole letter that showed a spark
of true love? Did not the footfall of Madeline Staveley's step as
she passed along the passage go nearer to his heart than all the
outspoken assurance of Mary Snow's letter?
Nevertheless he had undertaken to do this thing, and he would do
it,--let the footfall of Madeline Staveley's step be ever so sweet in
his ear. And then, lying back in his bed, he began to think whether
it would have been as well that he should have broken his neck
instead of his ribs in getting out of Monkton Grange covert.
Mrs. Thomas was a lady who kept a school consisting of three little
girls and Mary Snow. She had in fact not been altogether successful
in the line of life she had chosen for herself, and had hardly been
able to keep her modest door-plate on her door, till Graham, in
search of some home for his bride, then in the first noviciate of her
moulding, had come across her. Her means were now far from plentiful;
but as an average number of three children still clung to her, and
as Mary Snow's seventy pounds per annum--to include clothes--were
punctually paid, the small house at Peckham was maintained. Under
these circumstances Mary Snow was somebody in the eyes of Mrs.
Thomas, and Fe
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