as the
word.

CHAPTER 20

In these summer days, whilst Norbert Franks was achieving popularity,
success in humbler guise came to the humorous and much-enduring artist
at Walham Green. For a year or two, Bertha Cross had spent what time
she could spare upon the illustration of a quaint old story-book, a
book which had amused her own childhood, and still held its place in
her affection. The work was now finished; she showed it to a publisher
of her acquaintance, who at once offered to purchase it on what seemed
to Bertha excellent terms. Of her own abilities she thought very
modestly in deed, and had always been surprised when any one consented
to pay--oftener in shillings than in pounds--for work which had cost
her an infinity of conscientious trouble; now, however, she suspected
that she had done something not altogether bad, and she spoke of it in
a letter to Rosamund Elvan, still in the country of the Basques.

"As you know," Rosamund replied, "I have never doubted that you would
make a success one day, for you are wonderfully clever, and only need a
little more self-confidence in making yourself known. I wish I could
feel anything like so sure of earning money. For I shall have to, that
is now certain. Poor father, who gets weaker and weaker, talked to us
the other day about what we could expect after his death; and it will
be only just a little sum for each of us, nothing like enough to invest
and live upon. I am working at my water-colours, and I have been trying
pastel--there's no end of good material here. When the end comes--and
it can't be long--I must go to London, and see whether my things have
any market value. I don't like the prospect of life in a garret on
bread and water--by myself, that is. You know how joyfully, gladly,
proudly, I would have accepted it, under _other_ circumstances. If I
had real talent myself--but I feel more than doubtful about that. I
pray that I may not fall too low. Can I trust you to overwhelm me with
scorn, if I seem in danger of doing vulgar work?"

Bertha yielded to the temptations of a later summer rich in warmth and
hue, and made little excursions by herself into the country, leaving
home before her mother was up in the morning, and coming back after
sunset. Her sketching materials and a packet of sandwiches were but a
light burden; she was a good walker; and the shilling or two spent on
the railway, which formerly she could not have spared, no longer
frightened