Then it happened that I fell in love--not with a gentleman--don't look like that, Letty--but with a lady; and, as the lady took a small fancy to me at the same time, and wanted to have me about her, here I am." "But, surely, that is not a situation fit for one like you, Mary!" cried Letty, almost in consternation; for, notwithstanding her opposition to her aunt's judgment in the individual case of her friend, Letty's own judgments, where she had any, were mostly of this world.

"I suppose you are a kind of--of--companion to your lady-friend ?" "Or a kind of lady's-maid, or a kind of dressmaker, or a kind of humble friend--something like a dog, perhaps--only not to be quite so much loved and petted; In truth, Letty, I do not know what I am, or what I am going to be; but I shall find out before long, and where's the use of knowing, any more than anything else before it's wanted ?" "You take my breath away, Mary! The thing doesn't seem at all like you! It's not consistent!--Mary Marston in a menial position! I can't get a hold of it!" "You remind me," said Mary, laughing, "of what my father said to Mr.
Turnbull once.

They were nearer quarreling then than ever I saw them.
You remember my father's way, Letty--how he would say a thing too quietly even to smile with it?
I can't tell you what a delight it is to me to talk to anybody that knew him!--Mr.Turnbull imagined he did not know what he was about, for the thoughts my father was thinking could not have lived a moment in Mr.Turnbull.

'You see, John Turnbull,' my father said, 'no man can look so inconsistent as one whose principles are not understood; for hardly in anything will that man do as his friend must have thought he would.'-- I suppose you think, Letty," Mary went on, with a merry air, "that, for the sake of consistency, I should never do anything but sell behind a counter ?" "In that case," said Letty, "I ought to have married a milkman, for a dairy is the only thing I understand.

I can't help Tom ever so little!--But I suppose it wouldn't be possible for two to write poetry together, even if they were husband and wife, and both of them clever!" "Something like it has been tried, I believe," answered Mary, "but not with much success.