certainly, and live at Dinan,
or some quiet old French town where provisions are cheap."

"My dear Conrad, I could not exist in one of those old French towns,
smelling perpetually of cabbage-soup."

"Then, my dear love, we must exercise the strictest economy, or life
will be impossible six years hence."

Pamela sighed and assented, with a sinking of her heart. To her mind
this word economy was absolutely the most odious in the English
language. Her life was made up of trifles; and they were all expensive
trifles. She liked to be better dressed than any woman of her
acquaintance. She liked to surround herself with pretty things; and the
prettiness must take the most fashionable form, and be frequently
renewed. She had dim ideas which she considered aesthetic, and which
involved a good deal of shifting and improving of furniture.

Against all these expensive follies Captain Winstanley set his face
sternly, using pretty words to his wife at all times, but proving
himself as hard as rock when she tried to bend him to her will. He had
not yet interfered with her toilet, for he had yet to learn what that
cost.

This knowledge came upon him like a thunder-clap one sultry morning in
July--real thunder impending in the metallic-tinted sky--about a month
after Vixen's departure.

Theodore's long-expected bill was among the letters in the morning's
bag--a bulky envelope which the Captain handed to his wife with his
usual politeness. He never opened her letters, but he invariably asked
to see them, and she always handed her correspondence over to him with
a childlike meekness. To-day she was slow to hand the Captain her
letter. She sat looking at the long list of items with a clouded brow,
and forgot to pour out her husband's coffee in the abstraction of a
troubled mind.

"I'm afraid your letters of this morning are not of a very pleasant
character, my love," said the Captain, watchful of his wife's clouded
countenance. "Is that a bill you are examining? I thought we paid ready
money for everything."

"It is my dressmaker's bill," faltered Mrs. Winstanley.

"A dressmaker's bill! That can't be very alarming. You look as awful,
and the document looks as voluminous, as if it were a lawyer's bill,
including the costs of two or three unlucky Chancery suits, or
half-a-dozen conveyances. Let me have the account, dear, and I'll send
your dressmaker a cheque next Saturday."

He held out his hand for the paper, but Pamela did no