"
"I am glad I have so much of your good opinion, Letty; but I am
not sure I shall have it still, when I have told you what I have
done. Indeed, I am not quite sure myself that I have done wisely;
but, if I have made a mistake, it is from having listened to love
more than to prudence."
"What!" cried Letty; "you're married, Mary?"
And here a strange thing, yet the commonest in the world,
appeared; had her own marriage proved to Letty the most blessed
of fates, she could not have shown more delight at the idea of
Mary's. I think men find women a little incomprehensible in this
matter of their friends' marriage: in their largerheartedness, I
presume, women are able to hope for their friends, even when they
have lost all hope for themselves.
"No," replied Mary, amused at having thus misled her. "It is
neither so bad nor so good as that. But I was far from
comfortable in the shop without my father, and kept thinking how
to find a life, more suitable for me. It was not plain to me that
my lot was cast there any longer, and one has no right to choose
difficulty; for, even if difficulty be the right thing for you,
the difficulty you choose can't be the right difficulty. Those
that are given to choosing, my father said, are given to
regretting. Then it happened that I fell in love--not with a
gentleman--don't look like that, Letty--but with a lady; and, as
the lady took a small fancy to me at the same time, and wanted to
have me about her, here I am.
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