"
"Oh, Mr. Morton!"
"Would you like to go?"
"How should I not like to go? Lady Ushant is my dearest, dearest
friend. It is so very good of her to think of me."
"She talks of the first week in December and wants you to be there
for Christmas."
"I don't at all know that I can go, Mr. Morton"
"Why not go?"
"I'm afraid mamma will not spare me." There were many reasons. She
could hardly go on such a visit without some renewal of her scanty
wardrobe, which perhaps the family funds would not permit. And, as
she knew very well, Mrs. Masters was not at all favourable to Lady
Ushant. If the old lady had altogether kept Mary it might have been
very well; but she had not done so and Mrs. Masters had more than
once said that that kind of thing must be all over;--meaning that
Mary was to drop her intimacy with high-born people that were of no
real use. And then there was Mr. Twentyman and his suit. Mary had
for some time felt that her step-mother intended her to understand
that her only escape from home would be by becoming Mrs. Twentyman.
"I don't think it will be possible, Mr. Morton."
"My aunt will be very sorry."
"Oh,--how sorry shall I be! It is like having another little bit of
heaven before me."
Then he said what he certainly should not have said. "I thought,
Miss Masters, that your heaven was all here.
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