“It is surely Mary Hill,” she said, advancing in her turn, with all the magnificence of which she was capable, and that was no small matter. “I have been looking at you for five minutes wondering; but it is you. And you have not changed a bit.” “Oh, no; how should I change? But you; now I look at you again I wonder that I recognized you at all. It was the first glance. I felt it could be no one else.” “It makes a great difference to be married and have a number of children,” said Letitia with genial dignity. “You have never married, Mary.” “Oh, no,” said Mary, with a faint laugh. “And are you just at home--as you used to be?” “Just at home--as I used to be. We are all older, the boys are out in the world, and little Fanny too, as a governess; but Annie and I are just the same, taking care of father and mother.” “They can’t want two of you to take care of them.” “That is true,” said Mary, with a faint change of color, “but we had no education--we elder ones--and we can’t teach, and there’s nothing else for a girl to do.” “A girl!” said Letitia under her breath, looking at Mary in her gentle middle-agedness from top to toe. But she perceived that the two elderly ladies, who had hitherto kept at a distance overawed by her fashionable appearance, were now consulting together with evident intention of advancing, so she added quickly, “I am so glad to have seen you. Come and see me, please, in the morning before one, at 300, Mount street, Berkeley Square--the park end--will you? Come to-morrow, Mary, please.” “I will indeed,” said Mary, with fervor. “It is the finest thing I have seen in London, dear Tishy, the face of an old friend: and as kind as ever,” she said with a glance of tender gratitude. She had not perhaps quite expected, nor had Letitia expected, that any such soft sentiment should have arisen in her bosom, if truth be told. “Don’t call me that, for heaven’s sake,” cried Letitia, waving her hand as she hurried away. And so the two elderly ladies were balked, and Mrs. Parke left the exhibition with a new plan taking form in her mind--a plan which would be a great kindness, yet very useful to herself--a plan which was to produce fruits of an importance almost awful to Letitia, yet at this moment altogether hidden, and the very possibility of them, from her eyes. CHAPTER IV.