I hope the reader will not think badly of Mary if I allow that the agitation of the curate filled her with a sort of elation and mischievous triumph for the moment. She had nearly laughed in the face of his gravity, and if she had done what was in her heart she would have cried out, “All this bother about a little girl like me!” But she did not say anything; she did not laugh; and when she looked up into his face for a moment at the lodge-gate, when he gave the books he was carrying for her to Mrs. Martingale, the coachman’s wife, to be sent up to the house, Mary was filled with sudden compunctions, and felt disposed rather to cry. She waved her hand to him as she went up the avenue with an April sort of face, half smiling, half weeping, which gave him a great deal of thought as he turned sadly upon his own way. He did not know what it meant, poor young man! It looked as if she were sorry for him, but why should she be sorry for him? Did she see, did she understand, the cause of his trouble? did she mean to support him with her sympathy, or to mock him, or to show him how far, far he was out of her sphere? He thought a great deal more about this than was at all consistent with the many other things he had to think of, and, alas! got the books of the lending library entirely into disorder, and forgot how much money he had received that week from the penny-bank and the clothing-club. He put down twice as much as they had paid to each subscriber’s name, and had to make it up from his own poor little purse; fortunately the entire amount was not considerable, but it was a great deal too much to be taken out of his poor pocket by Mary’s little regretful, sympathetic, yet mischievous look.