She would have liked, she said, to make it _William and Mary Marston_; for the business was to go on exactly as her father had taught her; the spirit of her father should never be out of the place; and if she failed, of which she had no fear, she would fail trying to carry out his ideas-but people were too dull to understand, and she therefore set the sign so in her heart only.
Her old friends soon began to come about her again, and it was not many weeks before she saw fit to go to London to add to her stock.
The evening of her return, as she and Letty sat over a late tea, a silence fell, during which Letty had a brooding fit.
"I wonder how Cousin Godfrey is getting on ?" she said at last, and smiled sadly.
"How do you mean _getting on_ ?" asked Mary.
"I was wondering whether Miss Yolland and he--" Mary started from her seat, white as the table-cloth.
"Letty!" she said, in a voice of utter dismay, "you don't mean that woman is--is making friends with _him_ ?" "I saw them together more than once, and they seemed--well, on very good terms." "Then it is all over with him!" cried Mary, in despair.

"O Letty! what _is_ to be done?
Why didn't you tell me before?
He'll be madly in love with her by this time! They always are." "But where's the harm, Mary?
She's a very handsome lady, and of a good family." "We're all of good enough family," said Mary, a little petulantly.

"But that Miss Yolland--Letty--that Miss Yolland--she's a bad woman, Letty." "I never heard you say such a hard word of anybody before, Mary! It frightens me to hear you." "It's a true word of her, Letty." "How can you be so sure ?" Mary was silent.

There was that about Letty that made the maiden shrink from telling the married woman what she knew.

Besides, in so far as Tom had been concerned, she could not bring herself, even without mentioning his name, to talk of him to his wife: there was no evil to be prevented and no good to be done by it.