"Then, please, ma'am," replied Mary, "would you mind letting Jemima dress you? I want to go out again, and should be glad if you could do without me for some days. My friend's baby is dead, and both she and her husband are very ill." Hesper threw down her book, and her eyes flamed. "What do you mean by using me so, Miss Marston?" she said. "I am very sorry to put you to inconvenience," answered Mary; "but the husband seems dying, and the wife is scarcely able to crawl." "I have nothing to do with it," interrupted Hesper. "When you made it necessary for me to part with my maid, you undertook to perform her duties. I did not engage you as a sick-nurse for other people." "'No, ma'am," replied Mary; "but this is an extreme case, and I can not believe you will object to my going." "I do object. How, pray, is the world to go on, if this kind of thing be permitted! I may be going out to dinner, or to the opera to-night, for anything you know, and who is there to dress me? No; on principle, and for the sake of example, I will not let you go." "I thought," said Mary, not a little disappointed in Hesper, "I did not stand to you quite in the relation of an ordinary servant." "Certainly you do not: I look for a little more devotion from you than from a common, ungrateful creature who thinks only of herself. But you are all alike." More and more distressed to find one she had loved so long show herself so selfish, Mary's indignation had almost got the better of her. But a little heightening of her color was all the show it made. "Indeed, it is quite necessary, ma'am," she persisted, "that I should go." "The law has fortunately made provision against such behavior," said Hesper. "You can not leave without giving me a month's notice." "The understanding on which I came to you was very different," said Mary, sadly. "It was; but, since then, you consented to become my maid." "It is ungenerous to take advantage of that," returned Mary, growing angry again. "I have to protect myself and the world in general from the consequences that must follow were such lawless behavior allowed to pass." Hesper spoke with calm severity, and Mary, making up her mind, answered now with almost equal calmness. "The law was made for both sides, ma'am; and, as you bring the law to me, I will take refuge in the law. It is, I believe, a month's warning or a month's wages; and, as I have never had any wages, I imagine I am at liberty to go. Good-by, ma'am." Hesper made her no answer, and Mary left the room. She went to her own, stuffed her immediate necessities into a bag, let herself out of the house, called a cab, and, with a great lump in her throat, drove to the help of Letty. First she had a talk with the landlady, and learned all she could tell. Then she went up, and began to make things as comfortable as she could: all was in sad disorder and neglect.