'Oh, I am all right,' said Nuttie, and her eyes shone with a light Mary did not at the moment understand; 'you need not be anxious for me _now_.' 'I suppose that unhappy valet's death makes your task easier,' said Mary. 'I think it will,' said Nuttie. 'Poor man! He was--I can't help saying it--the evil genius of the house. Dear mother knew it, struggled against him, and broke down in the struggle. It seems so strange that what she could not do has been done in such a manner, and at such a price! I wonder whether she knew it when she welcomed her boy!' 'Her influence will aid you still,' said Mary, 'and you have Mr. Dutton to help you too. I was so glad to find he was so near you.' 'Oh, Mr. Dutton!' exclaimed Ursula, in a strange tone that sent a thrill through Mary, though she knew not why; but at that moment they were interrupted, very inopportunely, by Mr. Bulfinch, who could not go away without asking Miss Egremont whether she thought her father could see him on business if he came up to town the next day. She thought that such an interview would rouse her father and do him good, advising him to call on the chance. Mark's tete-a-tete had been with his sister May, to whom he had much to tell of his wife and her gallant patience and energy, and how curious it was that now the incubus that had weighed on his uncle's household was removed, the prejudice had melted away, and he had grown so fond of her that, next to Ursula, she was his best comforter. 'I hope that will lead to more,' said May. 'I don't see how,' said Mark. The more we rely only on a blessing on our own exertions the better.' 'Even when Annaple works within an inch of her life?' 'Now that she is on a right tack about the baby, that will be easier. Yes, May, I do feel sometimes that I have brought her down to drudgery and narrowness and want of variety such as was never meant for her, but she will never let me think so. She says that it is living in realities, and that it makes her happier than toiling after society, or rather after the world, and I do believe it is true! I'm sure it is with me.' 'But such work as yours, Mark.' 'Nonsense, May; I enjoy it. I did not when I was in the Greenleaf firm, with an undeveloped sense that Goodenough was not to be trusted, and we were drifting to the bad, yet too green to understand or hinder it; but this I thoroughly like. What does one want but honest effective work, with some power of dealing with and helping those good fellows, the hands, to see the right and help themselves?' May sighed. 'And yet, now that poor child is gone, I feel all the more how hard it is that you should be put out of the rights of your name.' 'I never had any rights. It was the bane of my life to be supposed to have them. Nothing but this could have made a man of me.' 'And don't you have regrets for your boy?'