ching tone, and rising as if to go
away to Mr. Featherstone. Of course Fred felt as if the clouds had
parted and a gleam had come: he moved and stood in her way.

"Say one word, Mary, and I will do anything. Say you will not think
the worst of me--will not give me up altogether."

"As if it were any pleasure to me to think ill of you," said Mary, in a
mournful tone. "As if it were not very painful to me to see you an
idle frivolous creature. How can you bear to be so contemptible, when
others are working and striving, and there are so many things to be
done--how can you bear to be fit for nothing in the world that is
useful? And with so much good in your disposition, Fred,--you might
be worth a great deal."

"I will try to be anything you like, Mary, if you will say that you
love me."

"I should be ashamed to say that I loved a man who must always be
hanging on others, and reckoning on what they would do for him. What
will you be when you are forty? Like Mr. Bowyer, I suppose--just as
idle, living in Mrs. Beck's front parlor--fat and shabby, hoping
somebody will invite you to dinner--spending your morning in learning a
comic song--oh no! learning a tune on the flute."

Mary's lips had begun to curl with a smile as soon as she had asked
that question about Fred's future (young souls are mobile), and before
she ended, her face had its full illumination of fun. To him it was
like the cessation of an ache that Mary could laugh at him, and with a
passive sort of smile he tried to reach her hand; but she slipped away
quickly towards the door and said, "I shall tell uncle. You _must_ see
him for a moment or two."

Fred secretly felt that his future was guaranteed against the
fulfilment of Mary's sarcastic prophecies, apart from that "anything"
which he was ready to do if she would define it He never dared in
Mary's presence to approach the subject of his expectations from Mr.
Featherstone, and she always ignored them, as if everything depended on
himself. But if ever he actually came into the property, she must
recognize the change in his position. All this passed through his mind
somewhat languidly, before he went up to see his uncle. He stayed but
a little while, excusing himself on the ground that he had a cold; and
Mary did not reappear before he left the house. But as he rode home,
he began to be more conscious of being ill, than of being melancholy.

When Caleb Garth arrived at Stone Court soon after