incomprehensible to her. As long as she took care of her clothes, and
refrained from buying the very expensive garments her soul longed for,
she considered herself most exemplary. As for the smaller savings of
omnibus and cabs not absolutely needful, she rarely thought of such
matters, or, if she did, it made her frightfully cross, and urged her to
many spiteful and contemptuous remarks on girls who have the strength of
a horse, and do not care what horrid places they tramp through: so that
she never was able to lighten the household burdens by a farthing beyond
the very small amount she had originally agreed to contribute toward
them.

Her mother-in-law's meditations were interrupted by the young widow
skurrying in in desperate haste. "Jane has gone for a cab," she
exclaimed; "have you that shilling?"

"Here; you had better have eighteenpence, in case--"

"Oh yes, I had better; and do I look nice?"

"Very nice indeed. I think you are looking so much better than you did
last year--"

"That is because I go out a little; I delight in the theatre. Now I must
be off. There is the cab--oh! a horrid four-wheeler. Good-by, dear."

Mrs. Burnett was the wife of a civilian high up in the Indian service,
and was herself a woman of good family. She had come home in the
previous winter in order to introduce her eldest daughter to society,
and accidentally meeting Mrs. Frederic Liddell, whom she had known in
India, was graciously pleased to patronize her. She had taken a handsome