Page:Live and Let Live.djvu/98

 up again; I was not the least offended; if you had seriously proposed going away, I should, to be sure, have thought you very absurd and ungrateful."

"Indeed, indeed, Mrs. Ardley, I am not ungrateful—but—"

"But what? Surely you do not in earnest mean to leave me?"

"I must, ma'am. The doctor says I am getting a liver complaint, and I can never be cured if I don't take to some stirring work."

"Pshaw, Mary, how absurd! You have been to some goose of a doctor. It is a great deal harder to do 'stirring work,' as you call it, than to sit at your needle. I will speak to Doctor Smith about you. You know I have always told you that you might have our own physician free of expense."

"Thank you, ma'am, but I am sure my own dotor is right. He says he will not impose medicine on me; it will only make the matter worse, and I feel what he says to be true."

"And you really mean to leave me?"

"I must, Mrs. Ardley."

"Well, you must do as you think fit, but I doubt if you find a better place."

Mary was silent; her tears still flowed; there was something like a taunt in Mrs. Ardley's words, and still more in her manner, which repressed the expression of the gratitude Mary deeply felt for all the indulgences and kindness she had received at Mrs. Ardley's hand; and the lady left her with the conviction that, as she soon after said to a friend, "Mary Minturn was just like all other servant-girls; let Sara Hyde say what she will, they are an ungrateful pack. Mr. Ardley and I have made Mary