She began to remember a great many conversations as earnest, which had been stopped when she came into the room, and the looks of pity which had been bent upon her.  She had thought in her innocence that this was because she had lost her godmother, her protectress,—­and had been very grateful for the kindness of her friends.  But now another meaning came into everything.  Mrs. Bowyer had accompanied her visitor to the door, still talking, and when she returned her face was very grave.  But she smiled when she met Mary’s look, and said cheerfully,—­

“How kind of you, my dear, to make all those pinafores for me!  The little ones will not know themselves.  They never were so fine before.”

“Oh, Mrs. Bowyer,” cried the girl, “I have guessed something! and I want you to tell me!  Are you keeping me for charity, and is it I that am left—­without any provision, and that Mr. Furnival has written—­”

She could not finish her sentence, for it was very bitter to her, as may be supposed.

“I don’t know what you mean, my dear,” cried the vicar’s wife.  “Charity,—­well, I suppose that is the same as love,—­at least it is so in the 13th chapter of 1st Corinthians.  You are staying with us, I hope, for love, if that is what you mean.”

Upon which she took the girl in her arms and kissed her, and cried, as women must.  “My dearest,” she said, “as you have guessed the worst, it is better to tell you.  Lady Mary—­I don’t know why; oh, I don’t wish to blame her—­has left no will; and, my dear, my dear, you who have been brought up in luxury, you have not a penny.”  Here the vicar’s wife gave Mary a closer hug, and kissed her once more.  “We love you all the better,—­if that was possible,” she said.

How many thoughts will fly through a girl’s mind while her head rests on some kind shoulder, and she is being consoled for the first calamity that has touched her life!  She was neither ungrateful nor unresponsive; but as Mrs. Bowyer pressed her close to her kind breast and cried over her, Mary did not cry, but thought,—­seeing in a moment a succession of scenes, and realizing in a moment so complete a new world, that all her pain was quelled by the hurry and rush in her brain as her forces rallied to sustain her.  She withdrew from her kind support after a moment, with eyes tearless and shining, the color mounting to her face, and not a sign of discouragement in her, nor yet of sentiment, though she grasped her kind friend’s hands with a pressure which her innocent small fingers seemed incapable of giving.  “One has read of such things—­in books,” she said, with a faint courageous smile; “and I suppose they happen,—­in life.”

“Oh, my dear, too often in life.  Though how people can be so cruel, so indifferent, so careless of the happiness of those they love—­”

Here Mary pressed her friend’s hands till they hurt, and cried, “Not cruel, not indifferent.  I cannot hear a word—­”