“I shall live on five hundred a year at Rosen dale Manor,” determined Mrs. Bertram.  “And I have made up my mind that Loftie shall not cost me more than three.  Thus I shall save four hundred a year.  Catherine is only seventeen now.  By the time she is twenty I shall have a trifle over and above my income to fall back upon.  Twelve hundred pounds is a bagatelle with most people, but I feel I shall effect wonders with it.  Catherine and Mabel will be out of the common, very out of the common.  Unique people have an advantage over those who resemble the herd.  Catherine and Mabel are to be strongly individual.  In any room they are to be noticeable.  Little hermits, now, some day they shall shine.  They are both clever, just clever enough for my purpose.  Catherine might with advantage be a shade less beautiful, but Mabel will, I am convinced, fulfil all my expectations.  Then, if only Loftie,” but here Mrs. Bertram sighed.  She was returning from her visit to Mrs. Meadowsweet, walking slowly down the long avenue which led to the Manor.  This avenue was kept in no order; its edges were not neatly cut, and weeds appeared here and there through its scantily gravelled roadway.  The grass parterre round the house, however, was smooth as velvet, and interspersed with gay flower-beds.  It looked like a little agreeable oasis in the middle of a woodland, for the avenue was shaded by forest trees, and the house itself had a background of two or three acres of an old wood.

Mrs. Bertram was tired, and walked slowly.  She did not consider herself a proud woman, but in this she was mistaken.  Every line of her upright figure, each glance of her full, dark eyes, each word that dropped from her lips spoke of pride both of birth and position.  She often said to herself, “I am thankful that I don’t belong to the common folk; it would grate on my nerves to witness their vulgarities,—­their bad taste would torture me; their want of refinement would act upon my nature like a blister.  But I am not proud, I uphold my dignity, I respect myself and my family, but with sinful, unholy pride I have no part.”

This was by no means the opinion held of her, however, by the Northbury folk.  They had hailed her advent with delight; they had witnessed her arrival with the keenest, most absorbing interest, and, to the horror of the good lady herself, had one and all called on her.  She was petrified when this very natural event happened.  She had bargained for a life of retirement for herself and her girls.  She had never imagined that society of a distinctly lower strata than that into which she had been born would be forced on her.  Forced!  Whoever yet had forced Mrs. Bertram into any path she did not care to walk in?

She was taken unawares by the first visitors, and they absolutely had the privilege of sitting on her sofas, and responding to a few icy remarks which dropped from her lips.