d her husband had a talk together. Then
hurrying through her household duties, she started at a still very early
hour for Prince's Gate. She arrived there before ten o'clock, and as she
mounted the steps and pulled the ponderous bell she could not help
thinking of her last visit; she had felt sore and jealous then, to-day
she was bowed down by a sense of unworthiness and humility. Then, too,
she had gone to visit this rich and prosperous young woman dressed in
her very best, for she said to herself that whatever her poverty, she
would look every inch the lady; she looked every inch the lady to-day,
though she was in her old and faded merino. But that had now come to her
which made her forget the very existence of dress. The grand footman,
however, who answered her modest summons, being obtuse and uneducated,
saw only the shabby dress; he thought she was a distressed workwoman, he
had forgotten that she had ever come there before. When she asked for
Miss Harman, he hesitated and was uncertain whether she could see his
young lady; finally looking at her again, he decided to trust her so
far as to allow her to wait in the hall while he went to inquire.
Charlotte gave her name, Mrs. Home, and he went away. When he returned
there was a change in his manner. Had he begun to recognize the lady
under the shabby dress; or had Charlotte Harman said anything? He took
Mrs. Home up to the pretty room she had seen before, and left her there,
saying that Miss Harman would be with her in few moments. The room
looked just as of old. Charlotte, as she waited, remembered that she had
been jealous of this pretty room. It was as pretty to-day, bright with
flowers, gay with sunshine; the same love-birds were in the same cage,
the same canary sang in the same window, the same parrot swung lazily
from the same perch. Over the mantelpiece hung the portrait in oils of
the pretty baby, who yet was not so pretty as hers. Charlotte remembered
how she had longed for these pretty things for her children, but all
desire for them had left her now. There was the rustling of a silk dress
heard in the passage, and Charlotte Harman carelessly, but richly
attired, came in. There was, even in their outward appearance, the full
contrast between the rich and the poor observable at this moment, for
Charlotte Harman, too, had absolutely forgotten her dress, and had
allowed Ward to put on what she chose. When they were about to reverse
positions, this rich and this