CHAPTER VI.
“I stepped in to inquire after poor Mary, this morning,” said a neighbor of Lucy Ford. “Poor dear! she’s to be pitied!”
They who have suffered from the world’s malice, know that the most simple words may be made to convey an insult, by the tone in which they are uttered. Lucy Ford was naturally unsuspicious, but there was something in Miss Snip’s tone which grated harshly on her ear.
“I regret to say Mary is no better,” Lucy replied, with her usual gentle manner. “If I could persuade her to take more nourishment, I should be glad; but she sits rocking to and fro, seemingly unconscious of every thing.”
“I should like to see the poor dear,” said Miss Snip.
Lucy hesitated; then blushing, as if she felt ashamed of her doubts, she led the way to Mary’s room. Every thing about it bore marks of the taste of the occupant. There lay her silent guitar; there a half finished drawing; here a book with the pearl folder still between the leaves, where she and Percy had left it. The beautiful tea-rose he had given her, drooped its buds in the window, for want of care, and the canary’s cage was muffled, lest its song should quicken painful memories. And there sat Mary, as her mother had said, rocking herself to and fro, with her hands crossed listlessly on her lap, her blue-veined temples growing each day more startlingly transparent.
“Quite heart-rending, I declare,” said Miss Snip, “and as if the poor dear hadn’t enough to bear, just think of the malice of people. I said it was a shame and that of course nobody would believe it of Miss Mary, and I never spoke of it, except to lawyer Beadle’s wife, and one or two of our set; but a rumor is a rumor, and when it is once set rolling, it has got to go to the bottom of the hill; but nobody, I’m sure, that ever knew Miss Mary, would believe she would be seduced by Percy Lee!”
“Lord-a-mercy! you don’t suppose she heard me?” exclaimed Miss Snip, as Mary fell forward upon the floor.
“Cursed viper!” shouted Jacob Ford, emerging from the ante-room, and unceremoniously ejecting Miss Snip through the door. “Cursed viper!”