Mrs. Renton declared, when they were gone, that it was years since she had seen any one who pleased her so much. ‘As for the daughter, she is perfectly beautiful!’ she cried, in rapture; ‘and to think that such a lovely creature should have married Harry Rich!’ ‘But we don’t know anything about Harry Rich,’ said Mary, who was disposed to be misanthropical; ‘perhaps he was a lovely creature too.’ ‘I don’t understand what has come to you, Mary,’ said her aunt. ‘Why should you be so disagreeable? Such a nice, pretty creature; one would have thought she was just the very companion you want. And your own old schoolfellow, too! I never like to give in to what people say of girls being jealous of each other, but it really looks more like that than anything else.’ ‘Yes; I suppose I must be jealous of her,’ said Mary; and Mrs. Renton took the admission for irony, and read her a long lecture when they went for their drive. It is hard upon a young woman to be lectured when she is out driving, and can neither run away nor occupy herself with anything that may make a diversion. Poor Mary had to listen to a great many remarks about the evils of envy and self-estimation, and the curious want of sympathy she showed. ‘Poor thing!--a widow at such an early age, and badly left, and with such very sweet manners. And the mother such a very judicious person,’ said Mrs. Renton. ‘I am so glad they are at The Willows. It will be quite a resource to the boys.’ Then indeed something very like bitterness rankled in Mary Westbury’s heart. Envy, and hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness. Yes, very likely it would be a resource for the boys. In all her own long and tedious fulfilment of their duties, Mary had never once proposed to herself any reward ‘when the boys came home,’ and yet, perhaps, there had been in her heart some hope of appreciation,--some idea that they would understand what abnegation of herself it had been. They would know that this long, monotonous stretch of duty,--which was not, after all, her first natural duty,--was not less, but perhaps more hard, than their own wanderings and labour. And now all at once a cloud had fallen over this prospect. One soweth and another reapeth. Mary had laboured and denied herself for their sakes; but it was this stranger who would be the great resource for the boys. And Ben! Mary’s heart contracted with a secret, silent pang as she thought of Ben coming defenceless, unprepared, to find the syren who had,--she did not doubt,--bewitched and betrayed him, seated at his very gates. Her last conversation with him rose up before her as clear as if it had but just occurred. Ben, too, had ventured to suggest that she,--that all women,--would be envious of Millicent. Her heart rose with an indignant swell and throb. Was there nothing then in the world better than blue eyes and lips like rose-leaves, and the syren’s voice and smile? If that was all a man