have heard of you, Miss Hart. And
so Mrs. Bertram doesn't like you?"

"No, she hates me."

"Well, I'm sure. You don't look like a young lady to be hated."

"No one else hates me, Mrs. Bell, but she does, because she has a
reason. I have come back to Northbury on purpose to make her
uncomfortable, and I must stay."

"So you shall, my dear. I applaud a girl with spirit. And so you hate
Mrs. Bertram? And you have a spite against her with reason. Well, I may
as well own that I don't love her, having good cause not to do so. She
has been the means of breaking my young daughter's heart. My child is
even now lying on her bed of--" but here Mrs. Bell remembered what
Hannah had said about the shot silk, and the open-worked stockings.
"I wish I could help you, my dear young lady," she said.

"I was hoping you would help me. Might I not come and live with you
here? I would pay you well."

Mrs. Bell started and blushed. Caste was a very marked feature in
Northbury society, and between the people who let lodgings for money,
and those who lived genteelly on their means was a great and awful gulf.
No people were poorer in their way than the Bells, and no one would have
more dearly liked to add to her little store of this world's pelf than
would poor Mrs. Bell. She could scarcely afford to take a fashionable
girl in for nothing, and yet--dared she accept payment? Bell, if he
knew, would never forgive her, and, as to the town, it would simply cut
her dead.

The tall girl who was watching Mrs. Bell's face seemed, however, to be
able to read her through. She spoke in a moment in a very gentle and
pleading voice:

"I understand your position; you are a lady, and you don't like to
accept money."

"I couldn't do it, my dear. I couldn't really; Bell, he'd take on awful.
It isn't the custom in Northbury, Miss--Miss Hart."

"And I couldn't come to you without paying. Now, suppose you and I
managed it between us and nobody knew."

"Oh, Miss Hart, I'd be terrified. These things always leak out, they do
really."

"Not if they are properly managed. You might leave that part to me. And
you need not name any sum. I shall see that all your expenses are
covered. Have you a private cupboard in your bedroom? Unlock it every
Monday. That's all you need do. You can give out to all your friends
that you have received me as a visitor, because you were kind to me, and
I wanted to come back to Northbury so badly."

After considerable more par