It would be more just to say that her mind went whirling round and round like the scientific toy which represents processions of moving figures flying past, steeple-chases, hunting fields, negro contortionists, Christy’s minstrels. Everything was going round and round with Mary. She herself seemed only to be looking on, seeing the whirl which was going through her brain. It settled down a little after a time and solidified into the neat little figure which for so many days had occupied the chair on which she was leaning. Her thoughts all paused, stopped short in the whirl of them, and standing aside like so many country attendants allowed Lord Frogmore to reveal himself in the silence. There he stood, active, small, alert--with his short white curling locks and ruddy color. There he sat with his precise little ways, his cup of soup, his cough mixtures, Rogers, his man, taking such care of him. Mary’s heart jumped up and began to throb in her ears and jump in her throat like the piston of a steam engine. Lord Frogmore! And she had his letter in her pocket, a nice letter, a letter full of respect and honor, setting her in so high a place, doing her justice and far more than justice, Mary thought. No sign in all he said of the old maid at whom Letitia had assured her, and she herself had found, men laugh. Lord Frogmore showed no consciousness that she was an old maid, that she was past her bloom, that she was poor and he was doing her a great honor--oh, not a sign of that! If she had been a duke’s daughter and a creature beautiful as the day, the old gentleman could not have written with more tender respect. Mary was not without pride, humble woman though she was, and she had received many a wound among Letitia’s careless friends and visitors, wounds of which she was too proud to say anything and too good to resent, but of which she had deeply felt the sting. But out of Lord Frogmore’s letter there seemed to have come a balm which soothed and healed her very soul. She felt herself put in her right place, respected, honored, approved. If it did no more than this for her, it had done what words could not express. She sat hiding her face and felt this balm steal over and heal her wounds. And it was only after this, after a long interval, after the first whirl of agitation and the hush of gratified and soothed sensation, the charm and sweetness of being at length appreciated and understood, that Mary began to think what answer was she to make?--what was she to do? CHAPTER XIV.