Mrs. Cross heard the story with bent brows and lips severely set.
"And why didn't you tell me this before, pray?"
"I hardly know," answered the girl, thoughtfully, smiling. "Perhaps because I waited to hear more to make the revelation more complete. But—"
"And this," exclaimed Mrs. Cross, "is why you wouldn't go to the shop yesterday?"
"Yes," was the frank reply. "I don't think I shall go again."
"And, pray, why not?"
Bertha was silent.
"There's one very disagreeable thing in your character, Bertha," remarked her mother severely, "and that is your habit of hiding and concealing. To think that you found this out more than a week ago! You're very, very unlike your father. He never kept a thing from me, never for an hour. But you are always full of secrets. It isn't nice—it isn't at all nice."
Since her husband's death Mrs. Cross had never ceased discovering his virtues. When he lived, one of the reproaches with which she constantly soured his existence was that of secretiveness. And Bertha, who knew something and suspected more of the truth in this matter, never felt it so hard to bear with her mother as when Mrs. Cross bestowed such retrospective praise.
"I have thought it over," she said quietly, disregarding the reproof, "and on the whole I had rather not go again to the shop."