“This poor hat of mine will scarcely do another day's service,” said Mary, as she looked at it half laughingly. “Nor is my habit the fresher of its bath in the 'Red River;' and the worst of it is, Catty, I have overdrawn my quarter's allowance, and must live on, in rags, till Easter. I see, old lady, you have no sympathies to waste on me and my calamities this evening,” added she, gayly, “and so I'll just go to bed and, if I can, dream pleasantly.” “Rags, indeed,” said Catty. “It's well it becomes you to wear rags!” and her eyes sparkled with indignant passion. “Faith, if it comes to that,”--here she suddenly paused, and a pale hue spread over her features like a qualm of faintish sickness,--“may the Holy Mother give me help and advice; for sometimes I'm nigh forgetting myself!” “My dear old Catty,” said Mary, fondly, “don't fret about me and my foolish speech. I only said it in jest. I have everything,--far more than I want; a thousand times more than I desire. And my excellent aunt never said a truer thing in her life than when she declared that 'everybody spoiled me.' Now, good-night.” And kissing the old woman affectionately, Mary gathered up the stray fragments of her riding-gear, and hurried away, her merry voice heard cheerfully as she wended her way up many a stair and gallery to her own chamber. If Mary Martin's character had any one quality preeminently remarkable, it was the absence of everything like distrust and suspicion. Frankness and candor itself in all her dealings, she never condescended to impute secret motives to another; and the very thought of anything like mystery was absolutely repugant to her nature. For the very first time in her life, then, she left old Catty Broon with a kind of uneasy, dissatisfied impression. There was a secret, and she was somehow or other concerned in it; so much was clear. How could she convince the old woman that no revelation, however disagreeable in itself, could be as torturing as a doubt? “Can there be anything in my position or circumstances here that I am not aware of? Is there a mystery about me in any way?” The very imagination of such a thing was agony. In vain she tried to chase away the unwelcome thought by singing, as she went, by thinking over plans for the morrow, by noting down, as she did each night, some stray records of the past day; still Catty's agitated face and strange emotion rose before her, and would not suffer her to be at rest. To a day of great excitement and fatigue now succeeded a sleepless, feverish night, and morning broke on her unrefreshed, and even ill. CHAPTER XIV. A FINE OLD IRISH BARRISTER