She came to see her, as she had promised, the
Sunday after that disastrous visit; but the weather was still
uncertain and gusty, and she found both her and Godfrey in the
parlor; nor did Letty give her a chance of speaking to her alone.
The poor girl had now far more on her mind that needed help than
then when she went in search of it, but she would seek it no more
from her! For, the more she thought, the surer she felt that Mary
would insist on her making a disclosure of the whole foolish
business to Mrs. Wardour, and would admit neither her own fear
nor her aunt's harshness as reason sufficient to the contrary.
"More than that," thought Letty, "I can't be sure she wouldn't
go, in spite of me, and tell her all about it! and what would
become of me then? I should be worse off a hundred times than if
I had told her myself."
CHAPTER XL
WILLIAM MARSTON.
The clouds were gathering over Mary, too--deep and dark, but of
altogether another kind from those that enveloped Letty: no
troubles are for one moment to be compared with those that come
of the wrongness, even if it be not wickedness, that is our own.
Some clouds rise from stagnant bogs and fens; others from the
wide, clean, large ocean. But either kind, thank God, will serve
the angels to come down by. In the old stories of celestial
visitants the clouds do much; and it is oftenest of all down the
misty slope of griefs and pains and fears, that the most powerful
joy slides into the hearts of men and women and children.
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