“And Miss Matty, you say, is out!”

“Oh, yes, ma’am; a-pleasuring in her shot silk, and the open-worked stockings you ironed up a fortnight back.”

“Well, I feel bothered altogether, but I must go and see this visitor.”

Accordingly Mrs. Bell entered her drawing-room, where she was instantly confronted by a tall girl who greeted her with warmth, flashed her brilliant eyes into her face, subjugated her in a moment, and then made a bold request.

“My name is Josephine Hart.  About a month ago I took rooms at the Testers.  I find Mrs. Bertram has forbidden them to receive me again.  I don’t know where to go, as I am not acquainted with Northbury, but I can pay for good rooms.  Can you recommend any?”

“My dear child, now let me think.  The place is packed just at present—­simply packed.  Dear, dear!  I 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.”