Chapter: "Love seeketh not itself to please,
       Nor for itself hath any care
     But for another gives its ease
       And builds a heaven in hell's despair.
          .    .    .    .    .    .    .
     Love seeketh only self to please,
       To bind another to its delight,
     Joys in another's loss of ease,
       And builds a hell in heaven's despite."
                       --W. BLAKE: Songs of Experience


Fred Vincy wanted to arrive at Stone Court when Mary could not expect
him, and when his uncle was not down-stairs in that case she might be
sitting alone in the wainscoted parlor.  He left his horse in the yard
to avoid making a noise on the gravel in front, and entered the parlor
without other notice than the noise of the door-handle. Mary was in her
usual corner, laughing over Mrs. Piozzi's recollections of Johnson, and
looked up with the fun still in her face.  It gradually faded as she
saw Fred approach her without speaking, and stand before her with his
elbow on the mantel-piece, looking ill.  She too was silent, only
raising her eyes to him inquiringly.

"Mary," he began, "I am a good-for-nothing blackguard."

"I should think one of those epithets would do at a time," said Mary,
trying to smile, but feeling alarmed.

"I know you will never think well of me any more.  You will think me a
liar.  You will think me dishonest.  You will think I didn't care for
you, or your father and mother.  You always do make the worst of me, I
know."

"I cannot deny that I shall think all that of you, Fred, if you give me
good reasons.  But please to tell me at once what you have done.  I
would rather know the painful truth than imagine it."

"I owed money--a hundred and sixty pounds.  I asked your father to put
his name to a bill.  I thought it would not signify to him.  I made
sure of paying the money myself, and I have tried as hard as I could.
And now, I have been so unlucky--a horse has turned out badly--I can
only pay fifty pounds.  And I can't ask my father for the money: he
would not give me a farthing.  And my uncle gave me a hundred a little
while ago.  So what can I do?  And now your father has no ready money
to spare, and your mother will have to pay away her ninety-two pounds
that she has saved, and she says your savings must go too.  You see
what a--"

"Oh, poor mother, poor father!" said Mary, her eyes filling with tears,
and a little sob rising which she tried to repress.  She looked
straight before her and took no notice of Fred, all the consequences at
home becoming present to her.  He too remained silent for some moments,
feeling more miserable than ever.  "I wouldn't have hurt you for the
world, Mary," he said at last.  "You can never forgive me."

"What does it matter whether I forgive you?" said Mary, passionately.
"Would that make it any better for my mother to lose the money she has
been earning by lessons for four years, that she might send Alfred to
Mr. Hanmer's? Should you think all that pleasant enough if I forgave
you?"

"Say what you like, Mary.  I deserve it all."

"I don't want to say anything," said Mary, more quietly, "and my anger
is of no use."  She dried her eyes, threw aside her book, rose and
fetched her sewing.

Fred followed her with his eyes, hoping that they would meet hers, and
in that way find access for his imploring penitence.  But no!  Mary
could easily avoid looking upward.

"I do care about your mother's money going," he said, when she was
seated again and sewing quickly.  "I wanted to ask you, Mary--don't
you think that Mr. Featherstone--if you were to tell him--tell him, I
mean, about apprenticing Alfred--would advance the money?"

"My family is not fond of begging, Fred.  We would rather work for our
money.  Besides, you say that Mr. Featherstone has lately given you a
hundred pounds.  He rarely makes presents; he has never made presents
to us.  I am sure my father will not ask him for anything; and even if
I chose to beg of him, it would be of no use."

"I am so miserable, Mary--if you knew how miserable I am, you would be
sorry for me."

"There are other things to be more sorry for than that.  But selfish
people always think their own discomfort of more importance than
anything else in the world.  I see enough of that every day."

"It is hardly fair to call me selfish.  If you knew what things other
young men do, you would think me a good way off the worst."

"I know that people who spend a great deal of money on themselves
without knowing how they shall pay, must be selfish.  They are always
thinking of what they can get for themselves, and not of what other
people may lose."

"Any man may be unfortunate, Mary, and find himself unable to pay when
he meant it.  There is not a better man in the world than your father,
and yet he got into trouble."

"How dare you make any comparison between my father and you, Fred?"
said Mary, in a deep tone of indignation.  "He never got into trouble
by thinking of his own idle pleasures, but because he was always
thinking of the work he was doing for other people.  And he has fared
hard, and worked hard to make good everybody's loss."

"And you think that I shall never try to make good anything, Mary.  It
is not generous to believe the worst of a man.  When you have got any
power over him, I think you might try and use it to make him better;
but that is what you never do.  However, I'm going," Fred ended,
languidly.  "I shall never speak to you about anything again.  I'm very
sorry for all the trouble I've caused--that's all."

Mary had dropped her work out of her hand and looked up.  There is
often something maternal even in a girlish love, and Mary's hard
experience had wrought her nature to an impressibility very different
from that hard slight thing which we call girlishness.  At Fred's last
words she felt an instantaneous pang, something like what a mother
feels at the imagined sobs or cries of her naughty truant child, which
may lose itself and get harm.  And when, looking up, her eyes met his
dull despairing glance, her pity for him surmounted her anger and all
her other anxieties.

"Oh, Fred, how ill you look!  Sit down a moment.  Don't go yet.  Let me
tell uncle that you are here.  He has been wondering that he has not
seen you for a whole week."  Mary spoke hurriedly, saying the words
that came first without knowing very well what they were, but saying
them in a half-soothing half-beseeching tone, and rising as if to go
away to Mr. Featherstone.  Of course Fred felt as if the clouds had
parted and a gleam had come: he moved and stood in her way.

"Say one word, Mary, and I will do anything.  Say you will not think
the worst of me--will not give me up altogether."

"As if it were any pleasure to me to think ill of you," said Mary, in a
mournful tone.  "As if it were not very painful to me to see you an
idle frivolous creature.  How can you bear to be so contemptible, when
others are working and striving, and there are so many things to be
done--how can you bear to be fit for nothing in the world that is
useful?  And with so much good in your disposition, Fred,--you might
be worth a great deal."

"I will try to be anything you like, Mary, if you will say that you
love me."

"I should be ashamed to say that I loved a man who must always be
hanging on others, and reckoning on what they would do for him.  What
will you be when you are forty?  Like Mr. Bowyer, I suppose--just as
idle, living in Mrs. Beck's front parlor--fat and shabby, hoping
somebody will invite you to dinner--spending your morning in learning a
comic song--oh no! learning a tune on the flute."

Mary's lips had begun to curl with a smile as soon as she had asked
that question about Fred's future (young souls are mobile), and before
she ended, her face had its full illumination of fun.  To him it was
like the cessation of an ache that Mary could laugh at him, and with a
passive sort of smile he tried to reach her hand; but she slipped away
quickly towards the door and said, "I shall tell uncle.  You _must_ see
him for a moment or two."

Fred secretly felt that his future was guaranteed against the
fulfilment of Mary's sarcastic prophecies, apart from that "anything"
which he was ready to do if she would define it. He never dared in
Mary's presence to approach the subject of his expectations from Mr.
Featherstone, and she always ignored them, as if everything depended on
himself.  But if ever he actually came into the property, she must
recognize the change in his position.  All this passed through his mind
somewhat languidly, before he went up to see his uncle.  He stayed but
a little while, excusing himself on the ground that he had a cold; and
Mary did not reappear before he left the house.  But as he rode home,
he began to be more conscious of being ill, than of being melancholy.

When Caleb Garth arrived at Stone Court soon after dusk, Mary was not
surprised, although he seldom had leisure for paying her a visit, and
was not at all fond of having to talk with Mr. Featherstone.  The old
man, on the other hand, felt himself ill at ease with a brother-in-law
whom he could not annoy, who did not mind about being considered poor,
had nothing to ask of him, and understood all kinds of farming and
mining business better than he did.  But Mary had felt sure that her
parents would want to see her, and if her father had not come, she
would have obtained leave to go home for an hour or two the next day.
After discussing prices during tea with Mr. Featherstone Caleb rose to
bid him good-by, and said, "I want to speak to you, Mary."

She took a candle into another large parlor, where there was no fire,
and setting down the feeble light on the dark mahogany table, turned
round to her father, and putting her arms round his neck kissed him
with childish kisses which he delighted in,--the expression of his
large brows softening as the expression of a great beautiful dog
softens when it is caressed.  Mary was his favorite child, and whatever
Susan might say, and right as she was on all other subjects, Caleb
thought it natural that Fred or any one else should think Mary more
lovable than other girls.

"I've got something to tell you, my dear," said Caleb in his hesitating
way.  "No very good news; but then it might be worse."

"About money, father?  I think I know what it is."

"Ay? how can that be?  You see, I've been a bit of a fool again, and
put my name to a bill, and now it comes to paying; and your mother has
got to part with her savings, that's the worst of it, and even they
won't quite make things even.  We wanted a hundred and ten pounds: your
mother has ninety-two, and I have none to spare in the bank; and she
thinks that you have some savings."

"Oh yes; I have more than four-and-twenty pounds.  I thought you would
come, father, so I put it in my bag.  See! beautiful white notes and
gold."

Mary took out the folded money from her reticule and put it into her
father's hand.

"Well, but how--we only want eighteen--here, put the rest back,
child,--but how did you know about it?" said Caleb, who, in his
unconquerable indifference to money, was beginning to be chiefly
concerned about the relation the affair might have to Mary's affections.

"Fred told me this morning."

"Ah!  Did he come on purpose?"

"Yes, I think so.  He was a good deal distressed."

"I'm afraid Fred is not to be trusted, Mary," said the father, with
hesitating tenderness.  "He means better than he acts, perhaps.  But I
should think it a pity for any body's happiness to be wrapped up in
him, and so would your mother."

"And so should I, father," said Mary, not looking up, but putting the
back of her father's hand against her cheek.

"I don't want to pry, my dear.  But I was afraid there might be
something between you and Fred, and I wanted to caution you.  You see,
Mary"--here Caleb's voice became more tender; he had been pushing his
hat about on the table and looking at it, but finally he turned his
eyes on his daughter--"a woman, let her be as good as she may, has got
to put up with the life her husband makes for her.  Your mother has had
to put up with a good deal because of me."

Mary turned the back of her father's hand to her lips and smiled at him.

"Well, well, nobody's perfect, but"--here Mr. Garth shook his head to
help out the inadequacy of words--"what I am thinking of is--what it
must be for a wife when she's never sure of her husband, when he hasn't
got a principle in him to make him more afraid of doing the wrong thing
by others than of getting his own toes pinched.  That's the long and
the short of it, Mary.  Young folks may get fond of each other before
they know what life is, and they may think it all holiday if they can
only get together; but it soon turns into working day, my dear.
However, you have more sense than most, and you haven't been kept in
cotton-wool: there may be no occasion for me to say this, but a father
trembles for his daughter, and you are all by yourself here."

"Don't fear for me, father," said Mary, gravely meeting her father's
eyes; "Fred has always been very good to me; he is kind-hearted and
affectionate, and not false, I think, with all his self-indulgence. But
I will never engage myself to one who has no manly independence, and
who goes on loitering away his time on the chance that others will
provide for him.  You and my mother have taught me too much pride for
that."

"That's right--that's right.  Then I am easy," said Mr. Garth, taking
up his hat.  "But it's hard to run away with your earnings, eh child."

"Father!" said Mary, in her deepest tone of remonstrance.  "Take
pocketfuls of love besides to them all at home," was her last word
before he closed the outer door on himself.

"I suppose your father wanted your earnings," said old Mr.
Featherstone, with his usual power of unpleasant surmise, when Mary
returned to him.  "He makes but a tight fit, I reckon.  You're of age
now; you ought to be saving for yourself."

"I consider my father and mother the best part of myself, sir," said
Mary, coldly.

Mr. Featherstone grunted: he could not deny that an ordinary sort of
girl like her might be expected to be useful, so he thought of another
rejoinder, disagreeable enough to be always apropos.  "If Fred Vincy
comes to-morrow, now, don't you keep him chattering: let him come up to
me."

 Fred rushes to Stone Court to confess to Mary. He thinks prompt confession will gain him immediate forgiveness. Mary is furious with him and deeply disturbed about her familys suffering. She denounces his selfish pleasure seeking which doesnt care who suffers as a consequence. Fred is filled with despair. She feels sorry but is impatient at his being "so contemptible, when others are working and striving." Fred is cheered up by her satirical description of his future as a fat, shabby parasite in old age. Her change of mood encourages his incorrigible optimism. He leaves in a better mood, but feeling slightly ill. Mary awaits her fathers visit, and he comes soon after dusk. After some conversation with Featherstone, Caleb takes Mary aside. He tells her hesitantly about this financial problem and she promptly offers her savings. Caleb gently warns her about Freds unreliable nature that "a woman ... has got to put up with the life her husband makes for her "just as his own wife and suffered on his account. Mary assures him that she will never commit herself to "one who has no manly independence." He goes away comforted. Featherstone taunts Mary with her fathers poverty, to which she sharply replies.

