You should hear Tom's descriptions of the ladies' dresses when he comes home!" Mary was on the verge of crying out indignantly, "Then, if he can't take you, why doesn't he stop at home with you ?" but she bethought herself in time to hold her peace.

She settled it with herself, however, that Tom must have less heart or yet more muddled brains than she had thought.
"So, then," reverted Letty, as if willing to turn definitively from the subject, "you are actually living with the beautiful Mrs.Redmain! What a lucky girl you are! You will see no end of grand people! You will see my Tom sometimes--when I can't!" she added, with a sigh that went to Mary's heart.
"Poor thing!" she said to herself, "it isn't anything much out of the way she wants--only a little more of a foolish husband's company!" It was no wonder that Tom found Letty dull, for he had just as little of his own in him as she, and thought he had a great store--which is what sends a man most swiftly along the road to that final poverty in which even that which he has shall be taken from him.
Mary did not stay so long with Letty as both would have liked, for she did not yet know enough of Hesper's ways.

When she got home, she learned that she had a headache, and had not yet made her appearance..