“Yes, m’m, here is the check he gave me.” Mrs. Phelps glanced at it.
“It’s all right! Prompt pay—no nineteen cents to be cut off. But didn’t he say any thing to you?”
Mary appeared still more confused. Her adopted mother looked at her steadily though without displeasure for a few seconds, then shook her head affirmatively, with a slight smile of self-satisfaction. “Humph,” she said to herself, “I see how it is! It has gone further than I thought. He came here to-night for nothing else in the world! Well, Mary, to-morrow, at twelve precisely, you must be at Major Pierpoint’s with them gloves, and handkerchiefs, and silk stockings. You must start at half past eleven, so as to call on the way on Miss Clayton for the money for her bill. Why do you blush so—are you afraid of Miss Clayton?”
“No, aunt.”
“Are you afraid of Major Pierpoint?”
“No, aunt.”
“Very well, child, go to your sewing.”
Mary bounded away lightly, and Mrs. Phelps looked after her with a prideful glance; “yes, if she is not foolish she has her fortune made. I will say nothing to her of my suspicions, but let her have her own way. To talk to young girls on such a subject and try to guide and advise them, only makes puppets of them, and destroys the natural character. Leave Mary to her own native good sense and unbiassed feelings and she will be more likely to please such a man as Major Pierpoint than if she practised the most consummate artifices.”
With these sensible reflections, Mrs. Phelps dropped the subject for that night.
At a few minutes before half past eleven, Mary Lee made her appearance in the shop from her little chamber over it, arrayed in a neat black silk dress, with a pretty straw cottage, trimmed with delicate blue ribbon, and her beautiful brown hair arranged with elegant simplicity. It had not been ten minutes since she left the shop to make this change in her appearance. Yet it was as complete as if five hours had been wasted before her little mirror. Can any female reader tell me why Mary paid such attention to her appearance? Mrs. Phelps on seeing her, lifted up both hands, and an exclamation of surprise and displeasure was on the tip of her tongue! But some sudden reflection checked it on the verge of utterance, and dropping her hands, she said quietly and as if not noticing it—