science compelled me to do, I suffer all the miseries of remorse.
And how can I wish that it should be otherwise? It is better, surely,
to be capable of such suffering, than to go one's way in light-hearted
egoism. I'm not sure that I don't sometimes _encourage_ despondency.
You can understand that? I know you can, dear Bertha, for many a time I
have detected the deep feeling which lies beneath your joking way."
Passages such as this Bertha was careful to omit when reading from the
letters to her mother. Mrs. Cross took very little interest in her
daughter's friend, and regarded the broken engagement with no less
disapproval than surprise; but it would have gravely offended her if
Bertha had kept this correspondence altogether to herself.

"I suppose," she remarked, on one such occasion, "we shall never again
see Mr. Franks."

"He would find it rather awkward to call, no doubt," replied Bertha.

"I shall _never_ understand it!" Mrs. Cross exclaimed, in a vexed tone,
after thinking awhile. "No doubt there's something you keep from me."

"About Rosamund? Nothing whatever, I assure you, mother."

"Then you yourself don't know all, that's _quite_ certain."

Mrs. Cross had made the remark many times, and always with the same
satisfaction. Her daughter was content that the discussion should
remain at this point; for the feeling that she had said something at
once unpleasant and unanswerable made Mrs. Cross almost good humoured
for at least an hour.

Few were the distressful lady's sources of comfort, but one sure way of
soothing her mind and temper, was to suggest some method of saving
money, no matter how little. One day in the winter, Bertha passing
along the further part of Fulham Road, noticed a new-looking grocer's,
the window full of price tickets, some of them very attractive to a
housekeeper's eye; on returning home she spoke of this, mentioning
figures which moved her mother to a sour effervescence of delight. The
shop was rather too far away for convenience, but that same evening
Mrs. Cross went to inspect it, and came back quite flurried with what
she had seen.

"I shall most certainly deal at Jollyman's," she exclaimed. "What a
pity we didn't know of him before! Such a gentlemanly man--indeed,
_quite_ a gentleman. I never saw a shopkeeper who behaved so nicely. So
different from Billings--a man I have always thoroughly disliked, and
his coffee has been getting worse and worse. Mr. Jollyman is quite
willin