Mary Gray by Katharine Tynan — Read

It might have been considered great promotion for the daughter of Walter Gray, who attended all day to the ailments of watches with a magnifying glass stuck in his eye, to be the friend of Lady Agatha Chenevix as well as the adopted child almost of Lady Anne Hamilton. Indeed, in the early days, when Lady Agatha's friendship for Mary brought her into the finest society the country provided, Lady Anne sometimes watched Mary narrowly, to see how she was taking it. The result of these observations must have been quite satisfactory to the old lady, judging by the energetic shaking of her head after one or two of these occasions when she was alone and thought over things. Once she spoke her thoughts to Lady Agatha, to whom, indeed, she found herself often talking in a way that surprised herself. There was something about the minx that forced even a suspicious and reticent old lady into trust and confidence, and as her trust and confidence increased so did her affection for the brilliant young peeress.

"People said I was mad," she remarked, "when I took Mary Gray into my house, and into my heart. Matilda Drummond even said -- and I have never forgotten it to her -- that if she was my nephew, Jarvis, she'd have my condition of mind inquired into. Yet see how it has turned out! Is she spoilt? Is she an upstart? Is she set above her family? She's over there this minute with that poor little drab stepmother of hers. She worships her father. The joys and sorrows of the poor little household are as much to her to-day as the day she left them."