Mrs. Mason scolded and grumbled, that, for weeks after Charlotte's death, Mary Grimshawe performed her daily tasks with less alacrity, and wandered to and fro like one in a dream. Sometimes, the pent-up anguish of her heart found a vent in sad and unintelligible sounds--"A gibberish," her mistress said, "that was enough to frighten all the customers from the house." Mary had other causes of annoyance to grieve and perplex her, independent of the death of her sister. For some weeks past, the coarse, dissolute Robert Mason had shown a decided preference for her sister Sophy, whom he proclaimed in her hearing, to his bad associates, "to be the prettiest gal in the neighbourhood--the only gal that he cared a bit for, or deemed worth a fellow's thoughts. But then," added he carelessly, and with an air of superiority which galled Mary not a little, "the wench was poor--too poor for him. He wanted some fun with lots of tin, that would enable him to open a good public-house in town." Mary, as she listened, secretly blessed God that they were poor, while the ruffian continued: "His mother, the old jade! would never consent to his marrying one so much beneath him. If she only suspected him of casting a sheep's eye at Sophy Grimshawe, she would set marks on the gal's face that would spoil her beauty. But if the gal had not been so decidedly poor, he would please himself, without asking Mammy's leave, he could tell her." His coarse comrades received his disrespectful insubordination to his mother's authority as an excellent joke; while Mary only shuddered at his indelicate avowal of his liking for her sister, which filled her mind with a thousand indefinite fears. Sophy, of late, had been able to obtain but little work in the neighbourhood; she was silent and dejected, and murmured constantly against her poverty, and the want of every comfort that could render life tolerable. Sometimes she talked of going into service, but, against this project, so new from her mouth, her mother objected, as she had no one else during the day to wait upon her, or speak to her. More generally, however, she speculated upon some wealthy tradesman making her his wife, and placing her at once above want and work. "I care not," she would say, "how old or ugly he might be, if he would only take me out of this, and make a lady of me." Mary shook her head, and tried, in hoarse ejaculations, to express her disapprobation of such an immoral avowal of sentiments she could but regard with horror; while she fixed upon her sister those piercing eyes, which seemed to look into her very soul--those eyes which, gleaming through fast-falling tears, made the vain girl shiver and turn away. "Sophy," said Mrs. Grimshawe gravely, for the remark was made one evening, by her mother's bed-side; "Mary cannot speak her thoughts, but I understand her perfectly, and can speak them for her, and would seriously ask you, if you think it a crime to sell your soul for money?"