“I should say it was very selfish to come if it’s only for a short visit. But you are dreadfully thoughtless people about money and always were. If I did not count up everything and calculate whether it was worth while, I don’t know what I should do. Now getting to town and back again from Yorkshire must have cost you two pounds at least, even second class----” “I came third class,” said Mary, much downcast. “But I am sure it cost you two pounds--why there must have been a cab from the station, and there will be a cab back again to the station, and I should not at all wonder if you gave the porter sixpence, though probably he is much better off than you are. And how long are you to stay with your aunt?” “A fortnight,” said Mary almost inaudibly, hanging her head. “A fortnight! You don’t imagine it can cost your father and mother a pound a week to keep you at home? Ten shillings is the very outside I should say. Well, then, you have thrown away a whole pound on this visit, and probably you got a new frock for it, or a bonnet or something. Oh, that is not the way to get on in the world! At this rate you will always be poor----” “They were very glad I should have the change,” said Mary, pale but plucking up a little courage. “They don’t count up every penny like that. Oh, Ti--Letitia, I am sure you mean to be kind; but when you put things before one like that it is like flaying one alive! For what can I do? I can’t be a governess, and there is nothing else that I can be----” “You might have married,” said Letitia, “if you had played your cards as you ought.” At this Mary gave her friend a startled glance and grew very red, but then turned away her head and said nothing. Letitia saw and understood, but took no notice. She went on-- “You might have married old Captain Taylor when he came home from abroad. And what a nice house he had, and plenty of money, and only think how comfortable you might have been. But you just threw him into Cecilia Foster’s hands--I don’t mean to reproach you, Mary; but it is all the same sort of thing. You never calculate beforehand--now how are you to make up that pound?” Letitia said these words with the greatest deliberation and emphasis, looking her friend almost sternly in the face. And to poor Mary a pound was no small matter. She had never thought of it before in this light, and an almost hysterical constriction came into her throat. Make up a pound! It is but a small sum of money, but she did not know how to do it any more than she knew how to fly. When Letitia had thus brought her friend down to the very earth, she suddenly made a rush at her and gave her a little dab of a kiss. “I will tell you, you dear old thing,” she said; “you shall come and pay a long visit to me.” “Tishy! I mean Letitia, oh what do you mean?” said Mary in her surprise.