“Oh Letitia,” said poor Mary, and there was the sound of tears in her voice: presently she added tremulously—“There’s nothing I would not do—if I could only be the housemaid to have my proper work and know what was expected of me.”
“Oh, yes,” cried Letitia sarcastically, “I think I see you at the housemaid’s work. You like a great deal better to look nice and play the lady and make up to the gentlemen.”
Mary rose hastily to her feet. “If that is your opinion of me,” she said hurriedly, “I had much better go away.”
“Oh, yes,” cried Letitia again, “that is the only other way with people like you—go away! That is the first cry as soon as you are crossed—when you know I have nobody to help me, not a creature I can trust to? But what do you care? What does it matter how worried I may be: I can’t go away if things go wrong; but you can threaten me—it is nothing to you——!”
“What do you want me to do?” cried poor Mary. “You know it is not true that I make up to the gentlemen. I never did at my youngest—and it would be a strange thing if I were to begin now.”
“Mary Hill,” said Letitia with solemnity, “you know you thought Ralph was your sweetheart when he went away——”
“If I ever was such a fool,” cried Mary with spirit. “I saw well what a fool I was the first words I exchanged with him. You could not wish so much that he would go away as I did—and you cannot wish so much as I do never to see him again!”
“Well! I hope Ralph Ravelstone is as good as any Hill at all events!” Letitia cried. Her brother might be odious to herself, but as is usual in such circumstances she resented disapprobation from others. “If you hadn’t thought so you would never have let him in—and Frogmore would never have seen him—and I shouldn’t have been ashamed in this way—and now you pretend you never want to see him again! It is just the way with—with—people like you. You pull yourselves up by other people’s hands and then you turn upon them. And here you have been currying favor with old Frogmore.”
“I—with Lord Frogmore!”
“Yes, you—finding his gloves for him, cutting up the books for him—showing him the way about the grounds—or whatever he wants. And what do you expect you are to make by that? Do you think he will put you in his will? But all he has is ours by right. It ought to go to the children, every penny. And do you think he minds what you do—an old maid? Not a bit. If there is a thing that men despise, it is an old maid.”