this disgrace
for Mary. She had never liked the girl and her occupation now afforded her the deepest gratification and delight.
Her present meditations were interrupted by the entry of Mrs. Brodie. Mamma's eyes sought out Mary.
'Have you turned the heel yet?' she enquired, with a forced assumption of interest.
'Nearly,' replied Mary, her pale face unchanging from its set, indifferent apathy.
'You're getting on finely! You'll set your father up in socks for the winter before you've finished.'
'May I go out in the garden a minute?'
Mamma looked out of the window ostentatiously. 'It's smirring of rain, Mary. I think you better not go just now. When Nessie comes in maybe it'll be off, and you can take her out for a stroll around the back.'
Mamma's feeble diplomacy! The will of Brodie, wrapped up in too plausible suggestions or delivered obviously in the guise of uplifting quotations from Scripture, had pressed round Mary like a net for six weeks, each week of which had seemed like a year a year with long, long days. So oppressed and weakened in her resistance was she now that she felt obliged to ask permission for her
every action.
'May I go up to my room for a little, then?' she said dully.
'Certainly, Mary! If you would like to read, tear, take this;' and, as her daughter went slowly out of the room, Mrs. Brodie thrust upon her a bound copy of Spurgeon's sermons that lay conveniently ready upon the dresser. But immediately Mary had gone, a glance passed between the two women left in the room and Mamma nodded her head slightly. Grandma at once got up, willingly forsaking her warm corner by the fire, and hobbled into the parlour, where she sat down at the front window, commanding from this vantage a complete view of any one who might attempt to leave the house. The constant observation ordained by Brodie was in operation. Yet Mamma had hardly been alone a moment before another thought crossed her mind. She pondered, then nodded to herself, realising this to be a favourable opportunity to execute her husband's mandate, and, holding her skirts, she mounted the stairs, and entered her daughter's
room, determined to say a 'good word' to Mary.
'I thought I would come up for a little chat,' she said brightly. 'I havena had a word with you ror a day or two.'
'Yes, Mamma!'
Mrs. Brodie considered her daughter critically. 'Have you seen the light yet, Mary?' she asked slowly.
Mary knew instinctively what was coming, knew that she was to receive one of Mamma's recently instituted pious talks which had made her at first either tearful or rebellious, which had never at any time made her feel better spiritually, and which now merely fell senselessly upon her stoic ears. These elevating discourses had become intolerable during her incarceration and, together with every other form of high-minded exhortation, had been thrust upon her, heaped upon her head like reproaches, at all available opportunities. The
reason was not far to seek. At the conclusion of that awful session in the parlour Brodie had snarled at his wife, 'She's your daughter! It's your job to get some sense of obedience into her. If you don't, by God! I'll take the strap across her back again and over yours too.'
'Do you feel yourself firm on the rock yet, Mary?' continued Mamma earnestly.
'I don't know,' replied Mary, in a stricken voice.
'I can see yoi haven't reached it yet,' Mamma sighed gently. 'What a comfort it would be to your father and me if we saw you more-abounding in faith, and goodness, and obedience to your parents.' She took Mary's passive hand. 'You know, my dear, life is short. Suppose we were called suddenly before the Throne in a state of unworthiness What then? Eternity is long. There is no chance to
repent then. Oh! I wish you would see the error of your ways. It makes it so hard for me, for your own mother that has done everything for you. It's hard that your father should blame me for that stiff, stubborn look that's still about ye just as if ye were frozen up. Why, I would do anything. I would even get the Rev. Mr. Scott himself to speak to you, some afternoon when your father wasna in! I read such a comforting book the other day of how a wayward woman
was made to see the light by one of God's own ministers.' Mamma sighed mournfully, and after a long impressive pause, enquired:
'Tell me, Mary, what is in your heart now?'
'I wish, Mamma, you'd leave me a little,' said Mary, in a low tone. 'I don't feel well.'
'Then you've no need of your mother, or the Almighty either,' said Mamma with a sniff. Mary looked at her mother tragically. She realised to the full the other's feebleness, ineptitude and impotence. From the very beginning she had longed for a mother to whom she could unbosom her inmost soul, on whom she might have leaned clingingly, to whom she might have cried passionately, 'Mother,
you are the refuge of my torn and afflicted heart! Comfort me and take my suffering from me! Wrap me in the mantle of your protection and shield me from the arrows of misfortune!'
But Mamma was, alas, not like that. Unstable as water, and as shallow, she reflected merely the omnipresent shadow of another stronger than herself. Upon her lay the heavy shade of a mountain whose ominous presence overcast her limpid nature with a perpetual and compelling gloom. The very tone of this godly conversation was merely the echo of Brodie's irresistible demand. How could she
speak of the fear of Eternity when her fear of Brodic dwarfed this into insignificance, into nothingness? For her there was only one rock, and that the adamantine hardness of her husband's furious will. Woe! Woe to her, if she did not cling submissively to that! She was, of course, a Christian woman, with all the respectable convictions which this implied. To attend church regularly on Sundays, even to frequent, when she could escape from her duties, an occasional fervent, week-night meeting, to condemn the use of the grosser words of the vocabulary such as 'Hell' or 'Damn', fully justified her claim to godliness; and when, for her relaxation, she read a work of fiction, she perused only such good books as afforded the virtuous and saintly heroine a charming and godly husband in the last chapter, and afforded herself a feeling of pure and elevated refinement. But she could no more have supported her daughter in this crisis of her life than she could have confronted Brodie in his wrath. All this Mary comprehended fully.
'Will you not tell me, Mary?' Mamma persisted. 'I wish I knew what was goin' on inside that stubborn head of yours!' She was continually in fear that her daughter might be secretly contemplating some discreditable step which would again arouse Brodie's ungovernable fury. Often in her shuddering anticipation she felt, not only the lash of his tongue, but the actual chastisement with which he had threatened her.
'There's nothing to tell you, Mamma,' replied Mary sadly. 'Nothing to say to you.'
She was aware that if she had attempted to unburden herself, her mother would have stopped her with one shrill, protesting cry and, with deaf ears, have fled from the room. 'No! No! don't tell me! Not a word more. I won't hear it. It's not decent,' Mary could almost hear her crying, as she ran. Bitterly she repeated:
'No! I've nothing at all to tell you!'
'But you must think of something. I know you're thinking, by the look of you,' persisted Mrs. Brodie. Mary looked full at her mother.
'Sometimes I think I would be happy if I could get out of this house and never come back' she said bitterly. Mrs. Brodie held up her hands, aghast.
'Mary!' she cried. 'What a thing to say! Ye should be thankful to have such a good home. It's a good thing your father doesna hear ye he would never forgive such black ingratitude!'
'How can you talk like that,' cried Mary wildly. 'You must feel as I do about it. This has never been a home to us. Can't you feel it crushing us? It's like part of father's terrible will. Remember I haven't been out of it for six weeks and I feel oh! I feel broken to pieces,' she sobbed.
Mrs. Brodie eyed these tears gratefully, as a sign of submission.
'Don't cry, Mary,' she admonished; 'although ye should be sorry for talking such improper nonsense about the grand place you're privileged to live in. When your father built it 'twas the talk o' Levenford.'
'Yes,' sobbed Mary, 'and so are we. Father makes that so, too. We don't seem like other people. We're not looked on like ordinary people.'
'I should think not!' bridled Mrs. Brodie. 'We're far and above them.'
'Oh! Mother,' cried Mary, 'you would never understand what I mean. Father has frightened you into his own notions. He's driving us all into some disaster. He keeps us apart from people. We've got no friends. I never had a
