mind is rightly framed. She had not yet known what it was to
have her abilities trampled on or insulted; she had never experienced
the bitterness consequent upon having the acquirements--which in the
days of her prosperity commanded silence and admiration--sneered at
or openly ridiculed.--She had yet to learn that the Solons, the
law-givers of English society, lavish their attentions and praise upon
those who learn, not upon those who teach.

Mary had not been six months fatherless, when she was astonished,
first by a letter, and then by a visit, from her former lover; he came
to renew his engagement, and to wed her even then if she would have
him; but Mary's high principle was stronger than he imagined. "No,"
she said, "you are not independent of your father, and whatever I
feel, I have no right to draw _you_ down into poverty. You may fancy
now that you could bear it; but a time would come--if not to you,
to me--when the utter selfishness of such conduct would goad me to
a death of early misery." The young man appealed to her uncle,
who thought her feelings overstrained, but respected her for it
nevertheless; and in the warmth of his admiration, he communicated the
circumstance to his wife and daughter.

"Refuse her old lover under present circumstances," repeated her
cousin to herself as she left the room; "there must be some other
reason than that; she could not be so foolish as to reject such an
offer at such a time." Unfortunately, she saw Edwin Lechmere walking
by Mary's side, under the shadow of some trees. She watched them until
the foliage screened them from her sight, and then she shut herself
into her own room, and yielded to a long and violent burst of tears.
"It is not enough," she exclaimed, in the bitterness of her feelings,
"that the comforts of my parents' declining years should be abridged
by the overwhelming burden to their exertions--another family added
to their own; it is not enough that an uncomfortable feeling has grown
between my father and mother on this account, and that cold looks and
sharp words have come where they never came before, but my peace of
mind must be destroyed. Gladly would I have taken a smaller portion,
if I could have kept the affections which I see but too plainly
my cousin has stolen from me. And my thoughtless aunt to say, only
yesterday, that 'at all events her husband was no man's enemy but his
own.' Has not his want of prudent forethought been the ruin of his own
chi