"Because I would not let her," he replied, almost sharply, "dress-making don't agree with my Mary, Miss Gray, and you know I told you from the first, that if her health wouldn't allow it, she was not to stay."
And a customer calling him back to the shop, he left the parlour threshold. Rachel rose.
"Good-night, Mary," she gently said; "if you feel stronger, and more able to work, you may come back to me."
Mary did not reply.
"Good-night, Mr. Jones," said Rachel, passing through the shop.
"Good-night, Miss Gray," he replied, formally. "My best respects to Mrs.
Gray, if you please."
When people have done an insolent and ungrateful thing, they generally try to persuade themselves that it was a spirited, independent sort of thing; and so now endeavoured to think Richard Jones and his daughter— but in vain. To both still came the thought: "Was this the return to make to Rachel Gray for all her kindness?"
The conscience of Mr. Jones, little used to such reflections, made him feel extremely uneasy; and if that of Mary was not quite so sensitive, the dull routine of the paternal home added much force to the conclusion "that she had much better have stayed with Miss Gray." Mary was too childish, and had ever been too much indulged to care for consistency. At the close of a week, she therefore declared that she wished to go back to Miss Gray, and did not know why her father had taken her away.
"I—I—my dear!" said Richard Jones, confounded at the accusation, "you said getting up early made your side ache."
"So it did; but I could have got up late, and gone all the same, only you wouldn't let me; you kept me here to mind the shop. I hate the shop. Teapot and all!" added Mary, busting into tears.