Mrs Berry enjoyed a world-wide repute for being, what was called in olden times, ‘a wise woman,’ but who, in these more enlightened days, would be spoken of as a clairvoyante. By whatever name one chose to call her, however, there was no doubt that she was a very wonderful woman, and possessed occult powers in no small degree. Had Mrs Berry been in a position to rent apartments in Bond Street, and to keep clean nails and a courtly manner, half the aristocratic ladies in London would have besieged her door for admittance. But, being unknown, excepting to the good people of Luton, she was fain to be content with the credit they accorded her, and the sixpences they could spare, in return for the prophecies she made for them. Notwithstanding the source from which she derived the best part of her income, Mrs Berry was held in high respect, and not a little fear, by her fellow-townsmen, and there were few found bold enough to taunt or jest with her on the misfortune which befell her daughter Rhoda. Rhoda’s story was a very common and a very sad one. About a year previous to the time when we first see her, she had received an offer, from a London house in connection with the firm for which she worked in Luton, to take up her residence in town, in order to do some of the finishing work which was necessary after the straw had been made into shapes. She was a particularly skilled workwoman in the department, and the salary offered her was double what she could earn at home. Mrs Berry had not wished her daughter to leave her. She had foretold all sorts of disasters which would befall her in London, but the girl was dazzled by the advantages she was promised, and the pleasant life she anticipated leading. So she laughed her mother’s prophecies to scorn, told her that ‘forewarned was forearmed,’ and that she would be very careful to avoid the dangers she prognosticated. So Mrs Berry let her go, with a sad heart, but she never ceased to lay the cards for her absent child, and to foretell a disastrous coming-home for her. And so it turned out! Rhoda Berry met Frederick Walcheren at some place of public amusement, from which he, struck with her beauty, followed her to her lodgings, made acquaintance with her, and pursued it until a fatal intimacy was established between them.