ing themselves--and a remittance. The remittance
would be more than usually welcome, for she was a little
in debt--a mere trifle, fifty or sixty francs; but Elfrida
hated being in debt. She tore the end of the envelope
across with absolute satisfaction, which was only half
chilled when she opened out each of the four closely
written sheets of foreign letter-paper in turn and saw
that the usual postal order was not there.

Having ascertained this however, she went back to her
egg; in another ten seconds it would have been hard-boiled,
a thing she detested. There was the, egg, and there was
some apricot-jam--the egg in a slender-stemmed Arabian
silver cup, the jam golden in a little round dish of
wonderful old blue. She set it forth, with the milk-bread
and the butter and the coffee, on a bit of much mended
damask with a pattern of rosebuds and a coronet in one
corner. Her breakfast gave her several sorts of pleasure.

Half an hour after it was over she was still sitting with
the letter in her lap. It is possible to imagine that
she looked ugly. Her dark eyes had a look of persistence
in spite of fear, a line or two shot up from between her
brows, her lips were pursed a little and drawn down at
the corners, her chin thrust forward. Her face and her
attitude helped each other to express the distinctest
possible negative. Her neck had an obstinate bend; she
leaned forward clasping her knees, for the moment a
creature of rigid straight lines. She had hardly moved
since she read the letter.

She was sorry to learn that her father had been unfortunate
in business, that the Illinois Indubitable Insurance
Company had failed. At his age the blow would be severe,
and the prospect, after a life of comparative luxury, of
subsisting even in Sparta on eight hundred dollars a year
could not be an inviting one for either of her parents.
When she thought of their giving up the white brick house
in Columbia Avenue and going to live in Cox Street,
Elfrida was thoroughly grieved. She felt the sincerest
gratitude, however, that the misfortune had not come
sooner, before she had learned the true significance of
living, while yet it might have placed her in a state of
blind irresolution which would probably have lasted
indefinitely. After a year in Paris she was able to make
up her mind, and this she could not congratulate herself
upon sufficiently, since a decision at the moment was of
such vital importance! For one point upon which