the grandeur about her.  She had frightened away her simpler neighbours by her airs of condescension and by the splendour of her house, and yet she could not yet see any way of inducing other and finer folks to come and see her.  Sometimes her husband brought in a rich patron and his wife to look at the fine room, and examnine the furniture in it, and these persons would generally be mighty civil to her whilst they stayed; but then they did not come to see her, but only in the way of business.  It was agreeable to be able to repeat what my lord this or my lady that said about the cabinets and chairs; but after all she was half afraid that her boasting deceived nobody, and Gertrude would never come to her aid with any little innocent fibs about their grand visitors.

“I never did believe a word of it,” repeated Madam, after a pause.  “Gertrude, why do you not answer when I speak to you?  You are as dull as a Dutch doll, sitting there and saying nothing.  I would that Frederick were at home!  He can speak when he is spoken to; but you are like a deaf mute!”

“I beg your pardon, ma’am.  I was reading—­I did not hear.”

“That is always the way—­reading, reading, reading!  Why, what good do you think reading will do you?  Why don’t you get your silk embroidery or practise upon the spinnet?  Such advantages as you have!  And all thrown away on a girl who does not know when she is well off.  I have no manner of patience with you, Gertrude.  If I had had such opportunities in my girlhood, I should never have been a mere citizen’s wife now.”

A slightly mutinous look passed across Gertrude’s face.  Submissive in word and manner, as was the rule of the day, she was by no means submissive in mind, and had her mother’s ears been sharper she might have detected the undertone of irony in the reply she received.

“I think nobody would take you for a citizen’s wife, ma’am.  As for me, I am not made to shine in a higher sphere than mine own.  I have not even the patience to learn the spinnet.  I would sooner be baking pies with Rebecca next door, as we used to do when we were children, before father grew so rich.”

Madam’s face clouded ominously.  She heartily wished she had never admitted her children to intimacy with the Harmers next door.  It had done no harm in the case of Frederick.  He was his mother’s son, every inch of him, and was as ready to turn up a supercilious nose at his old comrades as ever Madam could wish.

But Gertrude was different—­she was excessively provoking at times.  She did not seem able to understand that if one intended to rise in the world, one must cut through a number of old ties, and start upon a fresh track.  It was not easy in those times to rise; but still the wealthier citizens did occasionally make a position for themselves, and get amongst the hangers-on of the Court party, especially if they were open handed with their money.

Madam often declared that if they only moved into another part of the town, everything she wanted could be attained; but on that point her husband was inexorable.  He loved the old bridge house.  There he had been born, and there he meant to die, and he had not the smnallest intention of removing elsewhere to please even the wife to whom he granted so many indulgences.