“What are you going to defend her against?” asked his wife.

“I won’t have her ill-used because she refuses to marry at your bidding.”

“Bah!  You know as much how to manage a girl as though you were an old maid yourself.  Cocker her up and make her think that nothing is good enough for her!  Break her spirit, and make her come round, and teach her to know what it is to have an honest man’s house offered to her.  If she don’t take Larry Twentyman’s she’s like to have none of her own before long.”  But Mr. Masters would not assent to this plan of breaking his girl’s spirit, and so there was continual war in the place and every one there was miserable.

Mary herself was so unhappy that she convinced herself that it was necessary that some change should be made.  Then she remembered Lady Ushant’s offer of a home, and not only the offer, but the old lady’s assurance that to herself such an arrangement, if possible, would be very comfortable.  She did not suggest to herself that she would leave her father’s home for ever and always; but it might be that an absence of some months might relieve the absolute misery of their present mode of living.  The effect on her father was so sad that she was almost driven to regret that he should have taken her own part.  Her stepmother was not a bad woman; nor did Mary even now think her to be had.  She was a hardworking, painstaking wife, with a good general idea of justice.  In the division of puddings and pies and other material comforts of the household she would deal evenly between her own children and her step-daughter.  She had not desired to send Mary away to an inadequate home, or with a worthless husband.  But when the proper home and the proper man were there she was prepared to use any amount of hardship to secure these good things to the family generally.  This hardship Mary could not endure, nor could Mary’s father on her behalf, and therefore Mary prepared a letter to Lady Ushant in which, at great length, she told her old friend the whole story.  She spoke as tenderly as was possible of all concerned, but declared that her stepmother’s feelings on the subject were so strong that every one in the house was made wretched.  Under these circumstances,—­for her father’s sake if only for that,—­she thought herself bound to leave the house.  “It is quite impossible,” she said, “that I should do as they wish me.  That is a matter on which a young woman must judge for herself.  If you could have me for a few months it would perhaps all pass by.  I should not dare to ask this but for what you said yourself; and, dear Lady Ushant, pray remember that I do not want to be idle.  There are a great many things I can do; and though I know that nothing can pay for kindness, I might perhaps be able not to be a burden.”  Then she added in a postscript—­“Papa is everything that is kind;—­but then all this makes him so miserable!”