n. "And
I yours," he faintly answered; adding, with a sad, kind smile, as he
pointed to the testamentary document, "Take the will for the deed."

The two sons had emigrated to British Columbia, and Bertha would not
have been sorry to join her brothers there, for domestic labour on a
farm, in peace and health, seemed to her considerably better than the
quasi-genteel life she painfully supported. She had never dreamt of
being an artist, but, showing some facility with the pencil, was sent
by her father to South Kensington, where she met and made friends with
Rosamund Elvan. Her necessity and her application being greater than
Rosamund's, Bertha before long succeeded in earning a little money;
without this help, life at home would scarcely have been possible for
her. They might, to be sure, have taken a lodger, having spare rooms,
but Mrs. Cross could only face that possibility if the person received
into the house were "respectable" enough to be called a paying guest,
and no such person offered. So they lived, as no end of "respectable"
families do, a life of penury and seclusion, sometimes going without a
meal that they might have decent clothing to wear abroad, never able to
buy a book, to hear a concert, and only by painful sacrifice able to
entertain a friend. When, on a certain occasion, Miss Elvan passed a
week at their house (Mrs. Cross approved of this friendship, and hoped
it might be a means of discovering the paying guest), it meant for them
a near approach to starvation during the month that ensued.

Time would have weighed heavily on Mrs. Cross but for her one
recreation, which was perennial, ever fresh, constantly full of
surprises and excitement. Poor as she was, she contrived to hire a
domestic servant; to say that she "kept" one would come near to a
verbal impropriety, seeing that no servant ever remained in the house
for more than a few months, whilst it occasionally happened that the
space of half a year would see a succession of some half dozen
"generals." Underpaid and underfed, these persons (they varied in age
from fourteen to forty) were of course incompetent, careless,
rebellious, and Mrs. Cross found the sole genuine pleasure of her life
in the war she waged with them. Having no reasonable way of spending
her hours, she was thus supplied with occupation; being of acrid
temper, she was thus supplied with a subject upon whom she could
fearlessly exercise it; being remarkably mean of disposition, s