man;
well on the way to success, at all events. Unless fortune plays me a
dirty trick, I ought soon to be making my three or four thousand a
year; and there's the possibility of double that. Think what that
means, in the way of opportunity. Once or twice, when I was going to
see the Crosses, I've pulled myself up and asked what the deuce I was
doing--but I went all the same. The truth is, there's something about
Bertha--I wish you knew her, Warburton; I really wish you did. She's
the kind of girl any man might marry. Nothing brilliant about
her--but--well, I can't describe it. As different as could be from--the
other. In fact, it isn't easy to see how they became such close
friends. Of course, she knows all about me--what I'm doing, and so on.
In the case of an ordinary girl in her position, it would be
irresistible; but I'm not at all sure that _she_ looks at it in that
way. She behaves to one--well, in the most natural way possible. Now
and then I rather think she makes fun of me."

Warburton allowed a low chuckle to escape him.

"Why do you laugh?--I don't mean that she does it disagreeably. It's
her way to look at things on the humorous side--and I rather like that.
Don't you think it a good sign in a girl?"

"That depends," muttered Will.

"Well, that's how things are. I wanted to tell you. There's nobody else
I should think of talking to about it."

Silence hung between them for a minute or two.

"You'll have to make up your mind pretty soon, I suppose," said
Warburton at length, in a not unpleasant voice.

"That's the worst of it. I don't want to be in a hurry--it's just what
I don't want."

"Doesn't it occur to you," asked Will, as if a sudden idea had struck
him, "that perhaps she's no more in a hurry than you are?"

"It's possible. I shouldn't wonder. But if I seem to be playing the
fool--?"

"That depends on yourself.--But," Will added, with a twinkle in his
eye, "there's just one piece of advice I should like to offer you."

"Let me have it," replied the other eagerly. "Very good of you, old
man, not to be bored."

"Don't," said Warburton, in an impressive undertone, "don't persuade
Mrs. Cross to change her grocer."

CHAPTER 26

This conversation brought Warburton a short relief. Laughter, even
though it come from the throat rather than the midriff, tends to dispel
morbid humours, and when he woke next morning, after unusually sound
sleep, Will had a pleasure in the sunlight such