THE TWO MARYS
THE TWO MARYS
BY
MRS OLIPHANT
AUTHOR OF “THE CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD,” “THE WIZARD’S SON,”
“THE PRODIGALS,” ETC.
METHUEN & CO.
36 ESSEX STREET, W.C.
LONDON
1896
Originally published in
“MACMILLAN’S MAGAZINE” AND IN “GOOD WORDS”
CONTENTS
| THE TWO MARYS— | |||
| PAGE | |||
| I. | My Own Story | 1 | |
| I,II, III,IV,V,VI. | |||
| II. | Her Story | 85 | |
| VII,VIII,IX. | |||
| ———— | |||
| GROVE ROAD, HAMPSTEAD | 127 | ||
| I,II, III,IV,V,VI,VII,VIII,IX,X,XI,XII,XIII,XIV,XV. | |||
THE TWO MARYS
I. MY OWN STORY
CHAPTER I
MY name is Mary Peveril. My father was the incumbent of a proprietarychapel in that populous region which lies between Holborn and the NewRoad—a space within which there is a great deal of wealth and comfort,and a great deal of penury and pain, but neither grandeur nor abjectmisery. I like those streets, though I know there is no loveliness inthem. I feel that I can breathe better when I come out into thelargeness and spacious width of the squares, and I take a pleasure whichmany people will laugh at in the narrow paved passages—crooked and bentlike so many elbows, with their bookstalls and curious little shops. Howoften have I strayed about them with my father, holding on by hiscoat-skirts when I was little, by his arm when I grew tall, while hestood and gazed at the books which he{2} co