She swallowed hard once or twice, then she went on in her gruffest voice. "Look here, Jane, I don't want to see you make the fool of yourself that I did. I somehow got the notion that a woman was just as able as a man to make her way in the world, and that I wasn't going to depend upon 'petticoat push' for my living. I despised the idea of being dependent upon anybody, and so I--I-- Well, to cut a long story short, I told the only man who ever cared enough about me to want to take care of me, that I could take care of myself. I told him so three times in all, I remember. The third time he said, 'All right, Bertha; I reckon you'll have to try.' A year later he married one of those soft pink-and-white little things that I had always looked down upon as being too insignificant to despise. Yesterday----" Bertha Forbes paused to gulp painfully once or twice. "Yesterday that woman passed me in her carriage. There was a child on either side of her, and she was dressed like a flower; which means, you know, a bit more magnificently than Solomon in all his glory. She didn't know me, of course. And I tramped on down to my office. You know what my work is, Jane." "Yes, I know," and Jane blushed painfully. "I--I don't really like taking care of myself," she murmured, after a little, "but I can't see how I am going to help myself for a while. Anyway, you may be happier in your horrid office than that woman in her carriage, unless she--loves the man who gives it to her." The girl finished with a soft, far-away look in her brown eyes. "Right you are!" cried Bertha Forbes, bringing down her capable-looking hand upon her knee with a businesslike whack. "I'm not envying the woman; not I. Fancy me with a ridiculous feather bobbing over one eye, and diamonds and folderols of all sorts disposed upon my person. Wouldn't I be a holy show?" "You're really very good looking, when one looks at you carefully, Bertha," said the girl seriously, "but you need handsome clothes to bring out your good points." "Guess my points good or bad will have to remain in innocuous desuetude then," Miss Forbes said gruffly. "'Nough said about B. F., my dear. And if you're set on staying on in your servile position, and allowing that absurdly pretentious little matron and her infant to walk all over you, I've nothing to say, of course. Do the men treat you properly, child?" Jane stared at her friend resentfully. "I don't know what you mean," she said. "Mrs. Belknap's husband and brother are both gentlemen, and I--am her servant." "That's all right, child; but mind you keep that good-looking chap--what's his name? Oh, Everett--yes; mind you keep him at his distance, whatever you do." "_Bertha!_" cried Jane. "You needn't 'Bertha' me," said Miss Forbes severely. "I'm an old maid all right; but I know a thing or two if I am forty, and now that Mr. Towle has gone back to England----" "Has he gone back?" "Well; why not? You didn't want him to stay on in America, did you?"