"If you wish to do the best for him, you are. What's the good of beating about the bush? Why don't you have him?"

Mary did not quite know whether it behoved her to be angry with the old servant, and if so, how she was to show her anger. "You shouldn't talk such nonsense, Mrs Baggett."

"That's all very well. It is all nonsense; but nonsense has to be talked sometimes. Here's a gentleman as you owe everything to. If he wanted your head from your shoulders, you shouldn't make any scruple. What are you, that you shouldn't let a gentleman like him have his own way? Asking your pardon, but I don't mean it any way out of disrespect. Of course it would be all agin me. An old woman doesn't want to have a young mistress over her head, and if she's my sperrit, she wouldn't bear it. I won't, any way."

"Then why do you ask me to do this thing?"

"Because a gentleman like him should have his own way. And an old hag like me shouldn't stand for anything. No more shouldn't a young woman like you who has had so much done for her. Now, Miss Mary, you see I've told you my mind freely."

"But he has never asked me."

"You just sit close up to him, and he'll ask you free enough. I shouldn't speak as I have done if there had been a morsel of doubt about it. Do you doubt it yourself, Miss?" To this Miss Lawrie did not find it necessary to return any answer.

When Mrs Baggett had gone and Mary was left to herself, she could not but think over what the woman had said to her. In the first place, was she not bound to be angry with the woman, and to express her anger? Was it not impertinent, nay, almost indecent, that the woman should come to her and interrogate her on such a subject? The inmost, most secret feelings of her heart had been ruthlessly inquired into and probed by a menial servant, who had asked questions of her, and made suggestions to her, as though her part in the affair had been of no consequence. "What are you, that you shouldn't let a gentleman like him have his own way?" Why was it not so much to her as to Mr Whittlestaff? Was it not her all; the consummation or destruction of every hope; the making or unmaking of her joy or of her happiness? Could it be right that she should marry any man, merely because the man wanted her? Were there to be no questions raised as to her own life, her own contentment, her own ideas of what was proper? It was true that this woman knew nothing of John Gordon. But she must have known that there might be 

 Prev. P 19/167 next