‘But we found out afterwards,’ continued Mrs. Tracy, ‘that he had not anything like what he had given himself out to have. He had squandered his money in speculation,--that was the truth; and now his family, instead of appreciating the position of a poor young creature thus deprived of her natural protector----’ ‘Oh, please,’ said Mary, interrupting her; ‘I know the Riches a little, and I’d rather not hear anything about their affairs.’ ‘I am speaking of our affairs, my dear,’ said Mrs. Tracy, solemnly; ‘of Millicent’s affairs; for, alas! I can scarcely say I have any of my own. Since my poor boy died, seven years ago, I have not cared much what happened,--to myself.’ ‘Poor mamma worries about me more than she ought,’ said Millicent. ‘But we do not come to trouble you about that, dear Mary. How nice you look in your pretty muslin! I wonder if I shall ever wear anything pretty again. I feel such an old woman in those hideous caps. Don’t I look like a perfect ghost?’ ‘I think you look more beautiful than usual,’ said Mary, with a certain spitefulness. She intended no compliment. It was rather a reproach she meant, as if she had said, ‘You have no right to be beautiful. Why shouldn’t you look a perfect ghost like other people?’ It was sharply said, not without a touch of bitterness, though it sounded pleasantly enough; and Millicent shook back her veil a little further, and laid her fingers caressingly upon Mary’s hand. ‘Ah, it is you who are partial!’ she said, while Mary boiled with secret wrath. ‘But tell me about Thornycroft, and if it is still kept up; and our old Gorgon, you know, and all the people. There was that poor Mr. Thorny, too,’ said Millicent, with a little laugh; ‘tell me about them all.’ ‘Mr. Thorny died,--as you must have heard,’ said Mary; ‘and it was your doing, everybody said; and then poor Miss Thorny gave up. I wonder you like to think of it. It might have been going on like old times but for you----’ ‘Could I help it?’ said Millicent, with a little shrug of her shoulders. ‘If a man is a fool, is it my fault? You must know by this time, Mary, as well as I do, what fools they will make of themselves; but it is too bad to call it our fault.’ ‘I don’t know anything about it,’ said Mary, fiercely, and then there was a pause. ‘This is such a lovely place,’ said Mrs. Tracy; ‘we have heard so much about it. We used to know your cousin, Mr. Benedict Renton, Miss Westbury,--at one time. I suppose he is still abroad?’ ‘Yes, he is still abroad.’ ‘What a sad thing for him, with his prospects! It must have upset all your calculations. But the time is up now, is it not?’ Mrs. Tracy said, with her most ingratiating smile. Mary perceived in a moment what was their object, and hoping it might be but a voyage of inquiry, shut up all avenues of intelligence in her, and faced the inquisitor with a countenance blank of all meaning--or so at least she thought. ‘What time is up?’ she said.