On the Sunday Larry came into Dillsborough and had "his gossip with the girls" according to order;—but it was not very successful. Mrs. Masters who opened the door for him instructed him in a special whisper "to talk away just as though he did not care a fig¹ for Mary." He made the attempt manfully,—but with slight effect. His love was too genuine, too absorbing, to leave with him the power which Mrs. Masters assumed him to have when she gave him such advice. A man cannot walk when he has broken his ankle-bone, let him be ever so brave in the attempt. Larry's heart was so weighed that he could not hide the weight. Dolly and Kate had also received hints and struggled hard to be merry. In the afternoon a walk was suggested, and Mary complied; but when an attempt was made by the younger girls to leave the lover and Mary together, she resented it by clinging closely to Dolly;—and then all Larry's courage deserted² him. Very little good was done on the occasion by Mrs. Masters' man?uvres.

On the Monday morning, in compliance³ with a request made by Lady Ushant, Mary walked over to Bragton to see her old friend. Mrs. Masters had declared the request to be very unreasonable⁴. "Who is to walk five miles and back to see an old woman like that?" To this Mary had replied that the distance across the fields to Bragton was only four miles and that she had often walked it with her sisters for the very pleasure of the walk. "Not in weather like this," said Mrs. Masters. But the day was well enough. Roads in February are often a little wet, but there was no rain falling. "I say it's unreasonable," said Mrs. Masters. "If she can't send a carriage she oughtn't to expect it." This coming from Mrs. Masters, whose great doctrine⁵ it was that young women ought not to be afraid of work, was so clearly the effect of sheer opposition⁶ that Mary disdained⁷ to answer it. Then she was accused of treating her stepmother with contempt.

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