the milk, then jumped down again and swept half the cherries with it; and Ben, snatching up the half-knitted sock-top, fitted it over the kitten’s head as a new source of madness, while Letty arriving cried out to her mother against this cruelty—­it was a history as full of sensation as “This is the house that Jack built.”  Mrs. Garth was obliged to interfere, the other young ones came up and the tete-a-tete with Fred was ended.  He got away as soon as he could, and Mrs. Garth could only imply some retractation of her severity by saying “God bless you” when she shook hands with him.

She was unpleasantly conscious that she had been on the verge of speaking as “one of the foolish women speaketh”—­telling first and entreating silence after.  But she had not entreated silence, and to prevent Caleb’s blame she determined to blame herself and confess all to him that very night.  It was curious what an awful tribunal the mild Caleb’s was to her, whenever he set it up.  But she meant to point out to him that the revelation might do Fred Vincy a great deal of good.

No doubt it was having a strong effect on him as he walked to Lowick.  Fred’s light hopeful nature had perhaps never had so much of a bruise as from this suggestion that if he had been out of the way Mary might have made a thoroughly good match.  Also he was piqued that he had been what he called such a stupid lout as to ask that intervention from Mr. Farebrother.  But it was not in a lover’s nature—­ it was not in Fred’s, that the new anxiety raised about Mary’s feeling should not surmount every other.  Notwithstanding his trust in Mr. Farebrother’s generosity, notwithstanding what Mary had said to him, Fred could not help feeling that he had a rival:  it was a new consciousness, and he objected to it extremely, not being in the least ready to give up Mary for her good, being ready rather to fight for her with any man whatsoever.  But the fighting with Mr. Farebrother must be of a metaphorical kind, which was much more difficult to Fred than the muscular.  Certainly this experience was a discipline for Fred hardly less sharp than his disappointment about his uncle’s will.  The iron had not entered into his soul, but he had begun to imagine what the sharp edge would be.  It did not once occur to Fred that Mrs. Garth might be mistaken about Mr. Farebrother, but he suspected that she might be wrong about Mary.  Mary had been staying at the parsonage lately, and her mother might know very little of what had been passing in her mind.

He did not feel easier when he found her looking cheerful with the three ladies in the drawing-room.  They were in animated discussion on some subject which was dropped when he entered, and Mary was copying the labels from a heap of shallow cabinet drawers, in a minute handwriting which she was skilled in.  Mr. Farebrother was somewhere in the village, and the three ladies knew nothing of Fred’s peculiar relation to Mary:  it was impossible for either