She sat to-night revolving, as she was wont, the scenes of the day, her lips often curling with amusement at the oddities to which her fancy added fresh drollery:  people were so ridiculous with their illusions, carrying their fool’s caps unawares, thinking their own lies opaque while everybody else’s were transparent, making themselves exceptions to everything, as if when all the world looked yellow under a lamp they alone were rosy.  Yet there were some illusions under Mary’s eyes which were not quite comic to her.  She was secretly convinced, though she had no other grounds than her close observation of old Featherstone’s nature, that in spite of his fondness for having the Vincys about him, they were as likely to be disappointed as any of the relations whom he kept at a distance.  She had a good deal of disdain for Mrs. Vincy’s evident alarm lest she and Fred should be alone together, but it did not hinder her from thinking anxiously of the way in which Fred would be affected, if it should turn out that his uncle had left him as poor as ever.  She could make a butt of Fred when he was present, but she did not enjoy his follies when he was absent.

Yet she liked her thoughts:  a vigorous young mind not overbalanced by passion, finds a good in making acquaintance with life, and watches its own powers with interest.  Mary had plenty of merriment within.

Her thought was not veined by any solemnity or pathos about the old man on the bed:  such sentiments are easier to affect than to feel about an aged creature whose life is not visibly anything but a remnant of vices.  She had always seen the most disagreeable side of Mr. Featherstone:  he was not proud of her, and she was only useful to him.  To be anxious about a soul that is always snapping at you must be left to the saints of the earth; and Mary was not one of them.  She had never returned him a harsh word, and had waited on him faithfully:  that was her utmost.  Old Featherstone himself was not in the least anxious about his soul, and had declined to see Mr. Tucker on the subject.

To-night he had not snapped, and for the first hour or two he lay remarkably still, until at last Mary heard him rattling his bunch of keys against the tin box which he always kept in the bed beside him.  About three o’clock he said, with remarkable distinctness, “Missy, come here!”

Mary obeyed, and found that he had already drawn the tin box from under the clothes, though he usually asked to have this done for him; and he had selected the key.  He now unlocked the box, and, drawing from it another key, looked straight at her with eyes that seemed to have recovered all their sharpness and said, “How many of ’em are in the house?”

“You mean of your own relations, sir,” said Mary, well used to the old man’s way of speech.  He nodded slightly and she went on.

“Mr. Jonah Featherstone and young Cranch are sleeping here.”

“Oh ay, they stick, do they? and the rest—­they come every day, I’ll warrant—­Solomon and Jane, and all the young uns?  They come peeping, and counting and casting up?”