‘I don’t know much about Miss Rich,’ said Mrs. Renton, sighing in her fatigue. And she closed her eyes, lying back in her corner, and dozed, or appeared to doze. As for Mary, she had, as she said, a great deal to think about, and indulged herself accordingly, having perfect leisure. But Mary’s thoughts had more of a sting in them than her aunt’s. She was thinking somewhat bitterly of the difference between hope and reality. How hopeful, how promising had been all those young men, her cousins! She herself, feeling herself as a woman as old as the eldest, though she was in fact the same age as the youngest, had thought of them in the exalted way common to young women. Something better than usual, she had felt, must fall to their fate. And yet so soon, so suddenly, what a miserable end had come to her dreams! Ben, for whose express benefit some unimaginable creature had always been invented in Mary’s thoughts, had allowed himself to be taken captive by the first beautiful face, unaccompanied by anything better. He had set a creature on the supremest pedestal who was not worthy to be his servant, Mary thought. He had been beguiled and taken in by mere beauty,--not beauty even in which there was any soul. And Frank was going to marry money! She did not know about Laurie. Perhaps had she been aware how far he had erred on the other side, and how his admiration for the soul and heart had led him away, she might have been still more horror-stricken. The difference between fact and expectation made her heart sink. Was this all that hope was good for? was this all that men were good for? to be deceived or to deceive; to fall victims to a little art and a pair of bright eyes; or to affect a love which they did not feel? Mary’s heart sank within her, as she thought it all over. But her thoughts were interrupted by Mrs. Renton, who stirred uneasily every five minutes and said something to her. ‘I never saw Beecham look the least like what it does now,’ Mrs. Renton murmured, and then closed her eyes again. ‘I wonder what they are really worth,’ she would say next, drowsily, with her eyes shut, ‘when they can afford to spend so much on setting the house to rights. But the woman is insupportable,’ Mrs. Renton added, with much energy. Thus they went home again over Cookesley bridge and across the smiling country. ‘I am sorry you did not speak to Miss Rich, godmamma,’ said Mary, as they approached the gate of the Manor; ‘she is very nice, and just as well bred as other people. I never could have told the difference.’ A sentiment which, forced as it was from her by pure conscientiousness, made Mrs. Renton shake her head,-- ‘Ah, my dear, I never could have been deceived,’ she said. ‘When I saw her sitting by you, I said to myself in a moment, How easy it is to see which is the gentlewoman! But she is not so bad as her mother,--I can understand that.’