Mrs.
Wardour yielded it, but not very graciously. She had, indeed,
granted that Miss Marston was not like other shop-girls, but she
did not favor the growth of the intimacy, and liked Letty's going
to her less than Mary's coming to Thornwick.
CHAPTER X.
THE HEATH AND THE HUT.
Letty seldom went into the shop, except to buy, for she knew Mr.
Turnbull would not like it, and Mary did not encourage it; but
now her misery made her bold. Mary saw the trouble in her eyes,
and without a moment's hesitation drew her inside the counter,
and thence into the house, where she led the way to her own room,
up stairs and through passages which were indeed lanes through
masses of merchandise, like those cut through deep-drifted snow.
It was shop all over the house, till they came to the door of
Mary's chamber, which, opening from such surroundings, had upon
Letty much the effect of a chapel--and rightly, for it was a room
not unused to having its door shut. It was small, and plainly but
daintily furnished, with no foolish excess of the small
refinements on which girls so often set value, spending large
time on what it would be waste to buy: only they have to kill the
weary captive they know not how to redeem, for he troubles them
with his moans.
"Sit down, Letty dear, and tell me what is the matter," said
Mary, placing her friend in a chintz-covered straw chair, and
seating herself beside her.
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