ned with
astonishment to the account of the enormous sums lavished on these
sumptuous articles, and heard how twenty, or thirty, or forty thousand
francs had been given for this or that piece of luxury.

What was forty Napoleons a month for such splendor! Kraus was actually
lending him the villa at such a price; and what a surprise for Nelly,
when he should show her the little drawing-room in rose-damask he meant
for herself; and then there was a delightful arbor in the garden to
smoke in; and the whole distance from the Cursaal was not above ten
minutes' walk. Peter's fancy ran over rapidly all the jollifications
such a possession would entail; and if he wished, for his own sake, that
there were less magnificence, he consoled himself by thinking of the
effect it would have upon others. As he remarked to himself, "There 's
many thinks more of the gilding than the gingerbread!"

If Nelly's sorrow at leaving Hanserl's house was deep and sincere, it
became downright misery when she learned to what they were about to
remove. She foresaw the impulse his extravagance would receive from
such a residence, and how all the costliness of decoration would
suggest wasteful outlay. Her father had not of late confided to her
the circumstances of his income. He who once could not change a crown
without consulting her, and calling in her aid to count the pieces and
test their genuineness, would now negotiate the most important dealings
without her knowledge. From his former distrust of Kraus he grew to
believe him the perfection of honesty. There is something so captivating
to a wasteful man in being freely supplied with money,--with receiving
his advances in a spirit of apparent frankness,----that he would find it
impossible to connect such liberality with a mean or interested motive.
Kraus's little back room was then a kind of California, where he could
dig at discretion; and if in an unusual access of prudence honest Peter
would ask, "How do we stand, Abel?" Kraus was sure to be too busy to
look at the books, and would simply reply, "What does it matter? How
much do you want?" From such a dialogue as this Dalton would issue forth
the happiest of men, muttering to himself, how differently the world
would have gone with him if he "had known that little chap thirty or
forty years ago."

Without one gleam of comfort,--with terror on every side,--poor Nelly
took possession of her splendor to pass days of unbroken sorrow. Gloomy
as the