I watch her for a moment; doubtful whether I ought to believe what she said, or to alarm the house. But there was no sleepiness in her eyes, and nothing drowsy in her voice; and she sat up in bed quite easily without anything to support her. “You have given me a dreadful fright, Mary,” says I, sitting down by her in the chair, and beginning, by this time, to feel rather faint after being startled so. She jumped out of bed to get me a drop of water; and kissed me, and said how sorry she was, and how undeserving of so much interest being taken in her. At the same time, she tried to possess herself of the laudanum-bottle which I still kept cuddled up tight in my own hands. “No,” says I. “You have got into a low-spirited despairing way. I won’t trust you with it.” “I am afraid I can’t do without it,” says Mary, in her usual quiet, hopeless voice. “What with work that I can’t get through as I ought, and troubles that I can’t help thinking of, sleep won’t come to me unless I take a few drops out of that bottle. Don’t keep it away from me, Anne; it’s the only thing in the world that makes me forget myself.” “Forget yourself!” says I. “You have no right to talk in that way, at your age. There’s something horrible in the notion of a girl of eighteen sleeping with a bottle of laudanum by her bedside every night. We all of us have our troubles. Haven’t I got mine?” “You can do twice the work I can, twice as well as me,” says Mary. “You are never scolded and rated at for awkwardness with your needle; and I always am. You can pay for your room every week; and I am three weeks in debt for mine.” “A little more practice,” says I, “and a little more courage, and you will soon do better. You have got all your life before you--” “I wish I was at the end of it,” says she, breaking in. “I’m alone in the world, and my life’s no good to me.” “You ought to be ashamed of yourself for saying so,” says I. “Haven’t you got me for a friend. Didn’t I take a fancy to you when first you left your stepmother, and came to lodge in this house? And haven’t I been sisters with you ever since? Suppose you are alone in the world, am I much better off? I’m an orphan, like you. I’ve almost as many things in pawn as you; and, if your pockets are empty, mine have only got nine-pence in them, to last me for all the rest of the week.” “Your father and mother were honest people,” says Mary, obstinately. “My mother ran away from home, and died in a hospital. My father was always drunk, and always beating me. My stepmother is as good as dead, for all she cares about me. My only brother is thousands of miles away in foreign parts, and never writes to me, and never helps me with a farthing. My sweetheart--” She stopped, and the red flew into her face. I knew, if she went on that way, she would only get to the saddest part of her sad story, and give both herself and me unnecessary pain.