"There's a train at something after
five, if we can catch it. Splendid idea of yours to have a whole
day's walking. I don't walk enough. Are you likely to be going again
before long?"
Bertha replied that she never made plans beforehand. Her mood and
the weather decided an excursion
"Of course. That's the only way. Well, if you'll let me, I must come
to Walham Green, one of these days. How's Mrs. Cross? I ought to
have asked before, but I never do the right thing.--Have you any
particular day for being at home?--All right. If you had had, I
should have asked you to let me come on some other. I don't care
much, you know, for general society; and ten to one, when I do come
I shall be rather gloomy. Old memories, you know.--Really very
jolly, this meeting with you. I should have done the walk to Epsom
just as a constitutional, without enjoying it a bit. As it is--"
CHAPTER 21
It was a week or two after the day in Surrey, that Bertha Cross,
needing a small wooden box in which to pack a present for her
brothers in British Columbia, bethought herself of Mr. Jollyman. The
amiable grocer could probably supply her want, and she went off to
the shop. There the assistant and an errand boy were unloading goods
just arrived by cart, and behind the counter, reading a newspaper--
for it was early in the morning stood Mr. Jollyman himself. Seeing
the young lady enter, he smiled and bowed; not at all with
tradesmanlike emphasis, but rather, it seemed to Bertha, like a man
tired and absent-minded, performing a civility in the well-bred way.
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