y times disturbed, with--"Mary, my dear, will you get up?--I
think my spectacles must be about you "--or, "Mary, my dear, your eyes
are younger than mine, will you look if you can see my needle on the
carpet?"--or, "Are you sure, Mary, that's not my thimble you have got?
It's very like it; and I'm sure I can't conceive what's become of mine,
if that's not it," etc. etc. etc. But her idleness was, if possible,
still more irritating than her industry. When she betook herself to the
window, it was one incessant cry of "Who's coach is that, Mary, with the
green and orange liveries? Come and look at this lady and gentleman,
Mary; I'm sure I wonder who they are! Here's something, I declare I'm
sure I don't know what you call it--come here, Mary, and see what it is
"--and so on _ad infinitum._ Walking was still worse. Grizzy not only
stood to examine every article in the shop windows, but actually turned
round to observe every striking figure that passed. In short, Mary could
not conceal from herself that weak vulgar relations are an evil to those
whose taste and ideas are refined by superior intercourse. But even this
discovery she did not deem sufficient to authorise her casting off or
neglecting poor Miss Grizzy, and she in no degree relaxed in her patient
attentions towards her.

Even the affection of her aunt, which she possessed in the highest
possible degree, far from being an alleviation, was only an additional
torment. Every meeting began with, "My dear Mary, how did you sleep last
night? Did you make a good breakfast this morning? I declare I think you
look a little pale. I'm sure I wish to goodness, you mayn't have got
cold--colds are going very much about just now--one of the maids in this
house has a very bad cold--I hope you will remember to bathe your feet
And take some water gruel to night, and do everything that Dr. Redgill
desires you, honest man!" If Mary absented herself for a day, her
salutation was, "My dear Mary, what became of you yesterday? I assure you
I was quite miserable about you all day, thinking, which was quite
natural, that something was the matter with you; and I declare I never
closed my eyes all night for thinking about you. I assure you if it had
not been that I couldn't leave Sir Sampson, I would have taken a hackney
coach, although I know what impositions they are, and have gone to Beech
Park to see what had come over you."

Yet all this Mary bore with the patience of a martyr, to the ad