"No sign-painter's daughter nor bookkeeper's daughter, whichever she may be, on the programme with me, thank you. If there is, I'll not sing. That's all there is about it."
"Molly Glendenning, you're a snob! The worst sort!" replied Hester, but she laughed as she said it, and in a moment they were out of hearing. Several minutes later they passed the door again on their way down-stairs.
Mary Lee sat staring at the paper before her with dazed, tear-blinded eyes, as bit by bit her innocent little air-castle crumbled into nothingness. Then her glance fell on the words she had written, and laying her face down on them she began to sob. "Dear old father," she whispered, brokenly. "I asked them for bread and they gave me a stone. And it's because you have to work. They despise you for that, you dear old daddykins, with your high ideals and knightly notions of honour. Oh, how can they be so snobbish and blind! I'll not stay another day under the same roof with such heartless people!"
Wiping her eyes, she went slowly down-stairs to look for Travis, but the porch and halls were deserted. Every one must have gone over to the Inn, she thought, as she heard the notes of the violins stealing out on the night air. Travis was nowhere to be found. At last Mary Lee wandered into the empty, dimly lighted drawing-room, and throwing herself face downward on a long velvet divan, gave way to the feelings she could no longer control. She had never been so miserable in all her life before. Great, choking sobs shook her convulsively.
"Why, my dear child! What is the matter?" asked a deep voice, suddenly, and Mary Lee started up to see the kind face of the old general bending anxiously over her. "Are you ill? What is the mutter?" he repeated.
"'WHAT IS THE MATTER?' HE REPEATED"[ToList]
Mary Lee sat up, wiping her eyes with a little, wet ball of a handkerchief. "Nothing, thank you, sir," she said, politely, feeling all of a sudden that the wise old general would think her very silly, if he knew the cause of her crying. She tried to keep the sobs out of her answer, but the effort was a dismal failure, and the tears began to flow again.
"People often break their hearts over nothing," answered the general, courteously, but with a smile lurking under his white moustache. "It isn't wise to do it, and maybe I could convince you of the fact, if I knew what particular nothing is making you unhappy."