“Oh yes,” cried Mrs. Parke, “the sort of brother to bring forward among the gentlemen and exhibit to Frogmore! Oh you know very well how I should hate it. You did it to be revenged upon me. You wouldn’t take the trouble to get him out of the house when I sent you to do it. And now here’s father abusing me for sending him home--as if it were any doing of mine. I don’t understand you, Mary Hill, after all I’ve done for you. You know you have not cost your father a sixpence all this year. I gave you the very gown on your back that you might look nice, and brought you into the best society: but you’ll not take any trouble or do a single thing for me.” “Oh Letitia,” said poor Mary, and there was the sound of tears in her voice: presently she added tremulously--“There’s nothing I would not do--if I could only be the housemaid to have my proper work and know what was expected of me.” “Oh, yes,” cried Letitia sarcastically, “I think I see you at the housemaid’s work. You like a great deal better to look nice and play the lady and make up to the gentlemen.” Mary rose hastily to her feet. “If that is your opinion of me,” she said hurriedly, “I had much better go away.” “Oh, yes,” cried Letitia again, “that is the only other way with people like you--go away! That is the first cry as soon as you are crossed--when you know I have nobody to help me, not a creature I can trust to? But what do _you_ care? What does it matter how worried I may be: I can’t go away if things go wrong; but you can threaten me--it is nothing to you----!” “What do you want me to do?” cried poor Mary. “You know it is not true that I make up to the gentlemen. I never did at my youngest--and it would be a strange thing if I were to begin now.” “Mary Hill,” said Letitia with solemnity, “you know you thought Ralph was your sweetheart when he went away----” “If I ever was such a fool,” cried Mary with spirit. “I saw well what a fool I was the first words I exchanged with him. You could not wish so much that he would go away as I did--and you cannot wish so much as I do never to see him again!” “Well! I hope Ralph Ravelstone is as good as any Hill at all events!” Letitia cried. Her brother might be odious to herself, but as is usual in such circumstances she resented disapprobation from others. “If you hadn’t thought so you would never have let him in--and Frogmore would never have seen him--and I shouldn’t have been ashamed in this way--and now you pretend you never want to see him again! It is just the way with--with--people like you. You pull yourselves up by other people’s hands and then you turn upon them. And here you have been currying favor with old Frogmore.” “I--with Lord Frogmore!”