er aunt.

"Mercy on us! you need not knock the house down, Mary. I don't remember
exactly about it, only that his way of speaking made me think so."

"O aunt! do tell me what it was, and all about it," said Mary, following
her aunt, who went around dusting the furniture.

Mrs. Abigail, like most obstinate people, who feel that they have gone
too far, and yet are ashamed to go back, took refuge in an obstinate
generalization, and only asserted that she had heard him say things, as
if he did not quite like her ways.

This is the most consoling of all methods in which to leave a matter of
this kind for a person of active imagination. Of course, in five
minutes, Mary had settled in her mind a list of remarks that would have
been suited to any of her village companions, as coming from her cousin.
All the improbability of the thing vanished in the absorbing
consideration of its possibility; and, after a moment's reflection, she
pressed her lips together in a very firm way, and remarked that "Mr.
Barton would have no occasion to say such things again."

It was very evident, from her heightened color and dignified air, that
her state of mind was very heroical. As for poor Aunt Abigail, she felt
sorry she had vexed her, and addressed herself most earnestly to her
consolation, remarking, "Mary, I don't suppose William meant any thing.
He knows you don't mean any thing wrong."

"Don't _mean_ any thing wrong!" said Mary, indignantly.

"Why, child, he thinks you don't know much about folks and things, and
if you have been a little----"

"But I have not been. It was he that talked with me first. It was he
that did every thing first. He called me cousin--and he _is_ my cousin."

"No, child, you are mistaken; for you remember his grandfather was----"

"I don't care who his grandfather was; he has no right to think of me as
he does."

"Now, Mary, don't go to quarrelling with him; he can't help his
thoughts, you know."

"I don't care what he thinks," said Mary, flinging out of the room with
tears in her eyes.

Now, when a young lady is in such a state of affliction, the first thing
to be done is to sit down and cry for two hours or more, which Mary
accomplished in the most thorough manner; in the mean while making many
reflections on the instability of human friendships, and resolving never
to trust any one again as long as she lived, and thinking that this was
a cold and hollow-hearted world, together with many other thin