"I told him, and told him to leave off thinking on thee; but he
wouldn't be led by me. Thee! wench! thou wert not good enough to
wipe the dust off his feet. A vile, flirting quean as thou art.
It's well thy mother does not know (poor body) what a good-
for-nothing thou art."
"Mother! O mother!" said Mary, as if appealing to the merciful dead.
"But I was not good enough for him! I know I was not," added she,
in a voice of touching humility.
For through her heart went tolling the ominous, prophetic words he
had used when he had last spoken to her--
"Mary! you'll maybe hear of me as a drunkard, and maybe as a thief,
and maybe as a murderer. Remember! when all are speaking ill of me,
yo will have no right to blame me, for it's your cruelty that will
have made me what I feel I shall become."
And she did not blame him, though she doubted not his guilt; she
felt how madly she might act if once jealous of him, and how much
cause had she not given him for jealousy, miserable guilty wretch
that she was! Speak on, desolate mother.
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