had besought him to have, and of which by a significant motion of the face she had reminded him before leaving the room. He came to the point very soon, the sooner to get it over.

"Nell," he said, and, leaning back, with one arm flung along the top of the sofa, the other offering to his lips a thick cigar, waited long enough for her to wonder what was coming, "you spend too much money."

Without shadow of attempt at evasion, she said:

"Tom, I do."

"You 've got to retrench, girl; you 've got to be more careful."

"Yes, I suppose I 've got to." "Let's be practical. How are you going to do it?"

"I don't know, Tom. It 's so easy to spend and so hard to hold on to your money!"

"Well, I'm glad you don't deny a bent toward extravagance."

"I don't deny anything that means I spend a lot of money. I have more sense. The facts are there."

"You 've already broken into your capital, have n't you?"

"Did Hattie tell you that or did you guess? It's true, I have; but-" she tried to place the harm done in a harmless light-"it is n't so bad but that if I saved for a little while I could make it up again."

"If! True; but are you going to, Nell? That's the question."

"O Tom, I never ought to have been given any money if I was to hold on to it!" Aurora almost groaned. "I did n't know at first. I was pleased as Punch. I lay awake nights just to gloat and feel grand. I tell you, I meant to hold on to it! I tell you, it was n't going to get away from me after that good fight we made for it! But-" the effect of a mental groan was repeated-"the whole thing is n't as I thought it would be, not a bit." She stopped, and while she tried to coordinate her ideas, Dr. Tom quietly. waited for explanation or illustration of her meaning.

"I don't like money; there 's the whole of it." She gave him the sum of her attempt in one cast.

Dr. Tom continued to wait, smoking. "In fact, I hate it."

Dr. Tom continued to wait, without interrupting, or trying to help her disentangle her thought, of which he had in truth no inkling.

"I hate it, and I love it, both. That's truer, I suppose. But I can't be at rest with it."

"Never fear, girl," his tone was humorous,-"you'll get used to it. Just from watching you, I should have fancied you were pretty well used to it already."

"I somehow can't feel it right-there! -to have more than the rest," Aurora explained. "Come right down to it, I feel mean in having something the rest have n't got, and keeping it from them. I know it is n't good common sense, or how could rich people be so all right and calm in their minds as they are, and have everybody's respect? But, Tom, I suppose the amount of it is I was born poor and I go on having the feelings of the poor. If any one asks me for anything and appears to need it, I 've got to give it or feel too mean to live."

"With that view of it, of course I can see why your money would n't last long."

"Oh, I'm extravagant besides; I 'll own to that. That's the real trouble. I want to buy everything that takes my eye, I want to make everything run smooth, like on greased wheels, and to have all the faces around me look pleased, and everybody liking me. I love the feeling of luxury and festivity, and, oh, I just love a grand good time! But when I 've indulged myself, Tom, I would n't have the face, if I had the heart, to say no to anybody that came along and wanted me to indulge them, too. Now, I don't want you to go thinking this is generosity, Tom, or a good heart, or that I have any sneaking idea in my own bosom that it 's anything of the sort. When I was poor I never was generous; I never thought of it. I worked hard for what I got; and was in the same boat exactly as the rest; I was entitled to

the little bit I 'd worked for. But now it's different."

It's a

"All right, Nell; all right. perfectly understandable way of looking at it, if it is rather far-fetched. But goodby to the hard-earned thousands. You won't have a smitch of them left."

"Good-by then, and good riddance!" cried Aurora, violently, almost pettishly. "I don't really like them, anyhow. It's too easy just to write your name on a check. At first I thought I was living in a fairy-tale; but once you 've got used to it, it does n't compare with the fun you get the old-fashioned way, working hard. for a thing, and planning, and going to price it, and saving, and finally getting it, and that proud! People who have n't been poor simply don't know."

"Of course I have n't the faintest right to control your use of your money," he began; "but-"

"But of course you have, Tom,"-her tone changed at once, and was eagerly humble,-"every right. You can take it away from me any moment you please. Who has a right, I should like to know, if not you?"

"Well, then, Nell, I'm going to make a suggestion. What you have said shows me that simple advice would be of no use in this case. Don't think, girl, that I don't get at your way of seeing the matter; but I see other things to consider. Well, then as a promise to keep inside of your income would apparently embitter life to you, I won't ask for it, merely suggesting the fitness of trying to observe such a restriction. Even as regards your power to throw it away, there 'll be a lot more of it to throw if you respect your capital. However, the money is yours, to do exactly what you please with; but this I ask: empower me to turn some part of it into an annuity, unalienable and modestly sufficient."

"An annuity? What's that?"

"A sum of money so fixed that you receive the interest as long as you live and have no power over the sum itself. It's not yours to use or to transfer. In your case it's the one safe investment, the

single way I see to keep you out of the poorhouse."

"All right, Tom; do what you think best. But see here. Whatever you ar range for me that way, you 've got to arrange for Hattie, too, or it would n't be fair. I won't think of it unless you'll do the same for both. If I had n't a penny left in the world, you know the Carvers would take me in in a minute. Then if you do it, don't you see," she brought in slyly, "when I 've spent my money, there'll always be Hattie's for me to fall back on. Don't let her know you 're doing it, Tom, but fix it."

"All right. Two comfortable little annuities, enough to be independent on, and be taken care of if you 're sick."

"That's it, Tom. Then everybody's mind will be set at rest. And this I will promise: I'll try to be a good girl."

That subject being dropped, there was silence for a minute or two, while Tom thoughtfully smoked. At last he said:

"I had hoped"-his utterance was slow and heavy-"to find a different solution to the difficulty."

Her face questioned him, and at once looked troubled.

"I was going to try to take over all your difficulties and bundle them up with my own; but," he continued, after a moment, with force, "I'm not going to do it."

you,

"That's right, Tom," she came out eagerly, without pretending not to understand. "If I know what you mean, don't do it! Oh, I'm so grateful, I can't tell that you 've made up your mind that way. Because, dear Tom, whatever you wanted me to do, seems to me I'd have to do it. I don't see how I could say no to anything you asked me. It would break my heart, I guess, if I had to hold out against a real wish of yours. I could n't do it. All the same, I am certain that we would n't make just the happiest kind of couple."

"We are n't going to talk about it, Nell. I told you I had given it up. But," he went on after a heavy moment, unable entirely to subjugate his humanity-“but

I wish now I had asked you before you left home."

She was too oppressed with misery to speak at once, so he amplified.

"But it seemed rather more,-I don't want to call it by any such big word as chivalrous, it seemed rather whiter not to urge it, when circumstances might have seemed to lay a compulsion on you. Then it seemed better to let all the talk, the unpleasantness, in Denver die down first. Then, too, I wanted you to see the world; I liked the thought of you having your fling. But," he reiterated, "I can't help wishing I had followed my instinct and asked you before I let you go. Tell the truth, Nell. Would n't you have had me then?"

"I suppose, Tom, that I should have you now if you asked me. But then or now," she brought in quickly, "it would be a mistake. I could n't love you more dearly, Tom, than I do, good big brother that you 've been. Dear me, all we 've been through together! Then all the fun. we 've had! We could n't change to something different without all being spoiled. You don't seem to know, but I do, that I'm not the woman for you in that way. We're too much alike, Tom. What you want is a little dainty woman, delicate, quick, bright-minded, something, to find an example near at hand, like Hattie Carver. A big fellow like you wants some one to cherish and protect. How in the world would any one go to work protecting and cherishing a little darling big as a moose!"

"I might have known"-Dr. Tom made his reflections aloud-"that a good big husky man would n't have a chance with any good big husky girl while a sickly, sad-eyed, spindle-shanked son of a gun was hanging round!"

"There's nothing in that, I should think you'd know," said Aurora, quickly. "I like him, of course, and I like to have him round. Haven't you found him good company yourself? But that 's just friendship. Friendship like between a fish and a bird, and no more prospect of a different ending than that. If that 's troub

ling you, you can set your mind at rest, Tom."

"It's none of my business, anyhow," said the doctor, brusquely, flinging down his cigar and walking away from her to the mantelpiece, where he stood looking up at her portrait, but thinking of that other portrait of her, with its wizardry and strange truth, which she had not failed to show him.

"Tom, if I thought you could feel bitter, I should die, that 's all," cried Aurora, jumping up and following. "You 've been such a friend to me! Do you suppose I forget? And you know, now don't you, Tom, that I think the whole, whole world of you?" Arms were clasped around his neck, a head was pressed hard against his shoulder. "There never could anybody take your place with me. You'd only have to call over land or sea, and I'd come flying to serve you, to nurse you in sickness or help you in sorrow."

"Any time there 's anything I can do for you, anything in this world, Nell, you know you 've only got to sing out," he declared in his turn.

IT seemed to Gerald really rather late in the day for him to seek an excuse to call at the Hermitage; yet on the afternoon following Dr. Bewick's departure he sought for one-one having reference to Estelle. He took with him a propitiatory little volume containing translations of well-known poems by one Amiel. Estelle was regarded as being immensely interested in French; she daily translated themes back and forth from her own language into that of Molière. These singularly neat and exact productions of Amiel's should delight-and disarm her.

When he entered the red-and-green room, the very least bit timidly, with his book in his hand, he perceived almost at

once that something unusual was in the air.

Nothing was said at first of the cause for Aurora's air of repressed excitement, but at last she interrupted him in the middle of a sentence:

"Gerald, something so queer and unpleasant has happened!"

He raised both eyebrows in solicitous participation, and mutely questioned.

"It's about Charlie Hunt. I never would have imagined-you would n't either."

"My imagination, dear friend, is more far-reaching in some ways than yours," he quickly corrected her. "But do tell me what it is that has happened."

"Charlie Hunt! Charlie Hunt!" she repeated, like one unable to make herself believe a thing. "Charlie Hunt to turn nasty toward me like that from one day to the next!"

"To turn-"

"He was here to dinner just two weeks ago and perfectly all right. We had a nice, long chat together on the sofa. But he did n't make his party-call quite as soon as he usually does, so when I saw him at Brenda's wedding I thought of course he 'd come up and tell me how busy he 'd been. But he did n't come near me. I was sort of surprised, but did n't even think enough about it to mention it to Estelle. Well, this forenoon I went to the bank, and when I 'd got my money, I happened to catch sight of Charlie. I thought I'd like to speak to him. He's always wanted me to ask for him when I went to the bank, and I 've done it more than once. I asked for him, and then I took a seat, and in a minute in came Charlie, with just his usual look.

"Now, I want to tell you that I've never had one unpleasant word with Charlie Hunt; I 've always liked him real well. I put down, my foot against letting him run me and my house, but there never was a word said about it. I balked, but I did n't kick. All along I've been just as nice to him as I know how, except just one moment, when I stuck a little pin into him the night of the vegli

one, not supposing that he 'd ever know who did it.

"Well, I was sitting there at the table with the newspapers, and he came and stood near, without taking a chair, as if he had n't much time to spare. I began to talk and joke about his cutting me dead at the wedding, and he listened and talked back in a common-enough way, only I noticed that he once or twice called me Mrs. Barton instead of Mrs. Hawthorne. Now I must go back and tell you that some time ago when I was at the bank he casually asked me if I knew of any Mrs. Helen Barton in Florence, and he showed me two letters in the same handwriting, one addressed to the English bank, and the other to the American bank, Florence, that had been there at Hunt & Landini's for some time, and no one had called for and they did n't know what to do with. Now, the instant my eye lit on those letters I knew who 'd written them, what was in them, and who they were meant for. All letters for Estelle and me, you know, are first sent to Estelle's house in East Boston, to be forwarded to us wherever we might be in Europe; but that letter had escaped. That letter was from a queer kind of sour, unsuccessful woman called Iona Allen, who boarded once at the same house with me on Springfield Street, the languishing kind of critter that I never could stand, who had n't the gumption of a half-drowned chicken, who'd never stuck to anything or put any elbow-grease into the work on hand, and who whined all the time, and was looking out for some one to support her. I guessed she 'd heard of my money and was writing me a sweet letter of congratulations, along with a hard-luck story. I'd have liked to get hold of her letter, but did n't exactly see how I could. I said to Charlie, 'Let me take it; perhaps I can find the one it's meant for among my acquaintances.' But he did n't seem to think that could be done; so there the matter dropped. I did n't care much. Iona Allen can look for some one nearer home to support her.

"Well, to go back. When Charlie