I am considered to be falling over a precipice, and she
has got hold of my coat tails. Of course you wouldn't be Christians
if you didn't both of you seize a foot"
"Looking at it in that light I certainly wish to be understood as
holding on very fast," said Miss Penge.
CHAPTER XXVI
Give me six Months
There was a great deal of trouble and some very genuine sorrow in
the attorney's house at Dillsborough during the first week in
December. Mr. Masters had declared to his wife that Mary should go
to Cheltenham and a letter was written to Lady Ushant accepting the
invitation. The twenty pounds too was forthcoming and the dress and
the boots and the hat were bought. But while this was going on Mrs.
Masters took care that there should be no comfort whatever around
them and made every meal a separate curse to the unfortunate
lawyer. She told him ten times a day that she had been a mother to
his daughter, but declared that such a position was no longer
possible to her as the girl had been taken altogether out of her
hands. To Mary she hardly spoke at all and made her thoroughly wish
that Lady Ushant's kindness had been declined. "Mamma," she said
one day, "I had rather write now and tell her that I cannot come."
"After all the money has been wasted!"
"I have only got things that I must have had very soon.
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