Letitia swept in and did not say a word till she had reached the chair which Mary had hurriedly vacated. She had the air of bearing down upon her unfortunate friend, who retreated towards the only window which filled the little room with cold wintry light. “Well!” Mrs. Parke cried, as she came to a sudden pause, facing Mary with a threatening look. “Well!” But it was ill she meant. “Well,--Letitia,” cried poor Mary, faintly. “I have come to know if it was you that wrote me that disgraceful letter. Could it be you? Tell me, Mary, it’s all some terrible mistake, and that I have not lost my friend.” “Oh, Letitia! You have lost no friend. I--I hope--we shall always be friends.” “Did you write that letter?” said Letitia, coming a step nearer. “You--that I trusted in with my whole heart--that I took out of this wretched place where you were starving, and made you as happy as the day is long. Was it you--that wrote to me like that, Mary Hill?” Mary was capable of no response. She fell back upon the window, and stood leaning against it, nervously twisting and untwisting her shawl. “Letitia,” said the dowager, from behind, “don’t agitate yourself--and me: tell this person that it can’t go any further: we won’t allow it, and that’s enough. We’ve come here to put a stop to it.” Lady Frogmore emphasized what she said with the stamp of a large foot upon the floor. Her voice was husky and hoarse by nature, and she was out of breath either with fretting or with the unusual rapidity of motion, which had brought her in like a heavy barge, tugged in the wake of a little bustling steamboat. She cast a glance round to see if there was a comfortable chair, and dropped heavily into that which was sacred to the vicar on the other side of the fire, from which she looked round, contemplating the shabby parlor and the figure of Mary in her shawl against the window. “We’ve come---- to put a stop to it,” she repeated in her deep voice. Now Mary, though held by many bonds to Letitia, had at the bottom of her mild nature a spark of spirit--and it flashed through her mind involuntarily that it was she who would soon be Lady Frogmore, and that this large disagreeable woman was only the dowager. _She_ put a stop to it! So impudent a threat gave Mary courage. “I don’t know,” she said, “who has any business to interfere; and I don’t think there is anyone who has any right. I don’t say that to you, Letitia. You are not like anyone else. I very much wish--oh, if you would only let me! to explain everything to you.” “She has every right,” said Mrs. Parke; “and so has my husband. I suppose you don’t know that this is Lady Frogmore?”