tened from the City to Hanover Street.

Well, well; of course it would all begin over again; Jane herself knew
it. But is not all life a struggle onward from compromise to
compromise, until the day of final pacification?

Through that winter she lived with a strange secret in her mind, a
secret which was the source of singularly varied feelings--of
astonishment, of pain, of encouragement, of apprehension, of grief. To
no one could she speak of it; no one could divine its existence--no one
save the person to whom she owed this surprising novelty in her
experience. She would have given much to be rid of it; and yet, again,
might she not legitimately accept that pleasure which at times came of
the thought?--the thought that, as a woman, her qualities were of some
account in the world.

She did her best to keep it out of her consciousness, and in truth had
so many other things to think about that it was seldom she really had
trouble with it. Life was not altogether easy; regular work was not
always to be kept; there was much need of planning and pinching, that
her independence might suffer no wound, Bessie Byass was always in arms
against that same independent spirit; she scoffed at it, assailed it
with treacherous blandishment, made direct attacks upon it.

'I must live in my own way, Mrs. Byass. I don't want to have to leave
you.'

And if ever life seemed a little too hard, if the image of the past
grew too mournfully persistent, she knew where to go for consolation.
Let us follow her, one Saturday afternoon early in the year.

In a poor street in Clerkenwell was a certain poor little shop--built
out as an afterthought from an irregular lump of houses; a shop with a
room behind it and a cellar below; no more. Here was sold second-hand
clothing, women's and children's. No name over the front, but
neighbours would have told you that it was kept by one Mrs. Todd, a
young widow with several children. Mrs. Todd, not long ago, used to
have only a stall in the street; but a lady named Miss Lant helped her
to start in a more regular way of business.

'And does she carry it on quite by herself?'

No; with her lived another young woman, also a widow, who had one
child. Mrs. Hewett, her name. She did sewing in the room behind, or
attended to the shop when Mrs. Todd was away making purchases.

There Jane Snowdon entered. The clothing that hung in the window made
it very dark inside; she had to peer a little before she could