was much wrong.
“What a shame! I’ve left you alone for more than an hour!” said John. “Have you been very unhappy?” and he added, “darling.” It sounded like an afterthought.
“I have been rather unhappy,” answered Mary, and her answer was true. As she said it she tucked in a projecting edge of her letter. John had hurriedly slipped his (it was rather the worse for its mauling) into his trousers-pocket.
“You—you didn’t think me neglectful?”
“Oh, no.”
“I was thinking of you all the time,”
“And I was thinking of you, dear.”
“Are you very happy?”
“Yes, John; aren’t you?”
“Of course I am. Happy! I should think so,” and he kissed her with unimpeachable fervor.
When a conscientious person makes up his mind that he ought, for good reasons, to deceive somebody, there is no one like him for thorough-paced hypocrisy. When two conscientious people resolve; to deceive one another, on grounds of duty, the acme of duplicity is in a fair way to be reached. John Ashforth and Mary Travers illustrated this proposition. The former had been all his life a good son, and was now a trustworthy partner, to his father, who justly relied no less on his character than on his brains. The latter, since her parents’ early death had left her to her aunt’s care, had been the comfort and prop of Miss Bussey’s life. It is difficult to describe good people without making them seem dull; but luckily nature is defter than novelists, and it is quite possible to be good without being dull. Neither Mary nor John was dull; a trifle limited, perhaps, they were, a thought severe in their judgments of others as well as of themselves; a little exacting with their friends and more than a little with themselves. One description paints them both; doubtless their harmony of mind had contributed more than Mary’s sweet expression
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