‘Her happiness lasted but a very short time,’ said Mrs. Tracy, taking up her parable; ‘such a young man, too! But my poor dear child has been very badly used. It was not only that; he died just when he ought to have been making some provision for her.’
‘Oh, mamma dear, that was not poor Harry’s fault!’
‘But we found out afterwards,’ continued Mrs. Tracy, ‘that he had not anything like what he had given himself out to have. He had squandered his money in speculation,—that was the truth; and now his family, instead of appreciating the position of a poor young creature thus deprived of her natural protector——’
‘Oh, please,’ said Mary, interrupting her; ‘I know the Riches a little, and I’d rather not hear anything about their affairs.’
‘I am speaking of our affairs, my dear,’ said Mrs. Tracy, solemnly; ‘of Millicent’s affairs; for, alas! I can scarcely say I have any of my own. Since my poor boy died, seven years ago, I have not cared much what happened,—to myself.’
‘Poor mamma worries about me more than she ought,’ said Millicent. ‘But we do not come to trouble you about that, dear Mary. How nice you look in your pretty muslin! I wonder if I shall ever wear anything pretty again. I feel such an old woman in those hideous caps. Don’t I look like a perfect ghost?’
‘I think you look more beautiful than usual,’ said Mary, with a certain spitefulness. She intended no compliment. It was rather a reproach she meant, as if she had said, ‘You have no right to be beautiful. Why shouldn’t you look a perfect ghost like other people?’ It was sharply said, not without a touch of bitterness, though it sounded pleasantly enough; and Millicent shook back her veil a little further, and laid her fingers caressingly upon Mary’s hand.
‘Ah, it is you who are partial!’ she said, while Mary boiled with secret wrath. ‘But tell me about Thornycroft, and if it is still kept up; and our old Gorgon, you know, and all the people. There was that poor Mr. Thorny, too,’ said Millicent, with a little laugh; ‘tell me about them all.’
‘Mr. Thorny died,—as you must have heard,’ said Mary; ‘and it was your doing, everybody said; and then poor Miss Thorny gave up. I wonder you like to think of it. It might have been going on like old times but for you——’
‘Could I help it?’ said Millicent, with a little shrug of her shoulders. ‘If a man is a fool, is it my fault? You must know by this time, Mary, as well as I do, what fools they will make of themselves; but it is too bad to call it our fault.’