Mr. Spencer's method was entirely different. He treated Maria's apathetic unconcern with constant good nature, pretended to believe it maidenly modesty, and under all circumstances refused to understand or appropriate her evident dislike. But his cousin saw the angry sparkle in his black eyes, and to her he had once permitted himself to say, "I am bearing _now_, Elizabeth. When she is Mrs. Spencer it will be her turn to bear." And Elizabeth did not think it necessary to repeat the veiled threat to Maria's father. Medway's last letter, dated March the fourteenth, did not reach Maria until May the first. On the morning of that day she had been told by Mrs. Semple to dress and accompany her to Bond Street. "We are going to choose your wedding dress," she said, "and I do hope, Maria, you will take some interest in it. I have spoken to Madame Delamy about the fashion and trimmings, and your father says I am to spare no expense." "I will not have anything to do in choosing a wedding dress. I will not wear it if it is made." "I think it is high time you stopped such outrageous insults to your intended husband, your father and myself. I am astonished your father endures them. Many parents would consider you insane and put you under restraint." "I can hardly be under greater restraint," answered Maria calmly, but there was a cold, sick terror at her heart. Nevertheless she refused to take any part in the choosing of the wedding dress, and Mrs. Semple went alone to make the selection. But Maria was at last afraid. "Under restraint!" She could not get the words out of her consciousness. Surely her dear grandfather had had some prescience of this grave dilemma when he told her if she was not treated right to come back to him. But how was she to manage a return to New York? Women then did not travel, could not travel, alone. No ships would take her without companions or authority. She did not know the first of the many steps necessary, she had no money. She was, in fact, quite in the position of a little child left to its own helplessness in a great city. The Gordons would be likely to come to London before the winter, but until then she could find neither ways nor means for a return to New York. All she could do was to take day by day the steps that circumstances rendered imperative.