"Where would be the harm?" rejoined Helmer, looking puzzled. "I am not likely to say anything against her. You know perfectly well I admire her beyond any woman in the world. I don't care who knows it." "Your mother?" suggested Mary, in the tone of one who makes a venture. "Ah, come now, Miss Marston! Don't you turn my mother loose upon me. I shall be of age in a few months, and then my mother may--think as she pleases. I know, of course, with her notions, she would never consent to my making love to Letty--" "I should think not!" exclaimed Mary. "Who ever thought of such an absurdity? Not you, surely, Mr. Helmer? What would your mother say to hear you? I mention her in earnest now." "Let mothers mind their own business!" retorted the youth angrily. "I shall mind mine. My mother ought to know that by this time." Mary said no more. She knew Mrs. Helmer was not a mother to deserve her boy's confidence, any more than to gain it; for she treated him as if she had made him, and was not satisfied with her work. "When are you going to see Letty, Miss Marston?" resumed Helmer, after a brief pause of angry feeling. "Next Sunday evening probably." "Take me with you." "Take you with me! What are you dreaming of, Mr. Helmer?" "I would give my bay mare for a good talk with Letty Lovel," he returned. Mary made no reply. "You won't?" he said petulantly, after a vain pause of expectation. "Won't what?" rejoined Miss Marston, as if she could not believe him in earnest. "Take me with you on Sunday?" "No," she answered quietly, but with sober decision. "Where would be the harm?" pleaded the youth, in a tone mingled of expostulation, entreaty, and mortification. "One is not bound to do everything there would be no harm in doing," answered Miss Marston. "Besides, Mr. Helmer, I don't choose to go out walking with you of a Sunday evening." "Why not?" "For one thing, your mother would not like it. You know she would not." "Never mind my mother. She's nothing to you. She can't bite you.--Ask the dentist. Come, come! that's all nonsense. I shall be at the stile beyond the turnpike-gate all the afternoon--waiting till you come." "The moment I see you--anywhere upon the road--that moment I shall turn back.--Do you think," she added with half-amused indignation, "I would put up with having all the gossips of Testbridge talk of my going out on a Sunday evening with a boy like you?" Tom Helmer's face flushed. He caught up the gloves, threw the price of them on the counter, and walked from the shop, without even a good night. "Hullo!" cried George Turnbull, vaulting over the counter, and taking the place Helmer had just left opposite Mary; "what did you say to the fellow to send him off like that? If you do hate the business, you needn't scare the customers, Mary." "I don't hate the business, you know quite well, George. And if I did scare a customer," she added, laughing, as she dropped the money in the till, "it was not before he had done buying."