Oh no, my dear Mrs. Bowyer, Mary has a great deal of
character. You should put more confidence in her than that. No doubt she
will be much cast down at first, but when she knows, she will rise to the
occasion and show what is in her."
"Poor little thing! what is in a girl of eighteen, and one that has lain
on the roses and fed on the lilies all her life? Oh, I could find it in
my heart to say a great deal about old Lady Mary that would not be
pleasant! Why did she bring her up so if she did not mean to provide for
her? I think she must have been at heart a wicked old woman."
"Oh no! we must not say that. I dare say, as my son says, she always
meant to do it sometime-"
"Sometime! how long did she expect to live, I wonder?"
"Well," said the doctor's mother, "it is wonderful how little old one
feels sometimes within one's self, even when one is well up in years."
She was of the faction of the old, instead of being like Mrs. Bowyer, who
was not much over thirty, of the faction of the young. She could make
excuses for Lady Mary; but she thought that it was unkind to bring the
poor little girl here in ignorance of her real position, and in the way
of men who, though old enough to know better, were still capable of
folly,--as what man is not, when a girl of eighteen is concerned? "I
hope," she added, "that the earl will do something for her.
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