, and the sign-writer went
on until there stood in full, _Mary Marston_. Mr. Brett
hinted he would rather have seen it without the Christian name;
but Mary insisted she would do and be nothing she would not hold
just that name to; and on the sign her own name, neither more nor
less, should stand. She would have liked, she said, to make it
_William and Mary Marston_; for the business was to go on
exactly as her father had taught her; the spirit of her father
should never be out of the place; and if she failed, of which she
had no fear, she would fail trying to carry out his ideas-but
people were too dull to understand, and she therefore set the
sign so in her heart only.
Her old friends soon began to come about her again, and it was
not many weeks before she saw fit to go to London to add to her
stock.
The evening of her return, as she and Letty sat over a late tea,
a silence fell, during which Letty had a brooding fit.
"I wonder how Cousin Godfrey is getting on?" she said at last,
and smiled sadly.
"How do you mean _getting on_?" asked Mary.
"I was wondering whether Miss Yolland and he--"
Mary started from her seat, white as the table-cloth.
"Letty!" she said, in a voice of utter dismay, "you don't mean
that woman is--is making friends with _him_?"
"I saw them together more than once, and they seemed--well, on
very good terms.
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