"
"Ten to one she did, and your father is your trustee; and when you
marry, he must show his accounts and cash up. There, that is where the
shoe pinches."
Mary was distressed.
"Oh, don't say so, dear. I can't bear to think that of papa. You make me
very unhappy."
"Forgive me, dear," said Julia. "I am too bitter and suspicious. Some
day I will tell you things in my own life that have soured me. Money--I
hate the very word," she said, clinching her teeth.
She urged her view no more, but in her own heart she felt sure that she
had read Mr. Bartley aright. Why, he was a trader, into the bargain.
As for Mary, when she came to think over this conversation, her own
subtle instinct told her that stronger pressure than ever would now be
brought on her. Her timidity, her maiden modesty, and her desire to do
right set her on her defense. She determined to have loving but impartial
advice, and so she overcame her shyness, and wrote to Mr. Hope. Even then
she was in no hurry to enter on such a subject by letter, so she must
commence by telling him that her father had set a great many people, most
of them strangers, to dig for coal.
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