-set; it was old
Worcester. And she wouldn't let anyone wash the tea things but----"
Again, her voice failed her. "And two or three times a week an old
Indian judge came in to tea. And he used to talk to me about the East,
the wonderful, beautiful East. He made me long to see it all--I who had
never been anywhere. I've always loved history and books of travel more
than anything else. There are a lot of them there in my box--that's what
makes it so heavy--all about the beautiful places I was going to see
later on with the money Miss Wickham promised me----" her glance took in
the mean little room in all its unrelieved ugliness. "Oh, why did you
make me think of it all?"

She bowed her head on the table for a moment. Taylor laid his hand
gently on her arm.

"The past is dead and gone, my girl. We've got the future; it's ours."

She gently disengaged herself from his detaining hand and went over to
the little window, looking out with eyes that saw other pictures than
the window had to show.

"One never knows when one's well off, does one? It's madness to think of
what's gone forever."

For several minutes there was silence, during which Nora recovered her
self-control. Having wiped away her tears, she turned hack to him,
smiling bravely. "I beg your pardon. You'll think me more foolish than I
really am. I'm not the crying sort, I assure you. But I don't know, it
all----"

"That's all right, I know you're not," he said roughly. "I wish we'd got
a good drop of liquor here," he went on with the evident intention of
changing the current of her thoughts, "so as we could drink one
another's health. But as we _ain't_, you'd better give me a kiss
instead."

"I'm not at all fond of kissing," said Nora coolly.

Frank grinned at her, his pipe stuck between his white teeth.

"It ain't, generally speaking, an acquired taste. I guess you must be
peculiar."

"It looks like it," she said lightly.

"Come, my girl," he said, getting slowly up from his stool, "you didn't
even kiss me after we was married."

"Isn't a hint enough for you?"--her tone was perfectly friendly. "Why do
you insist on my saying everything in so many words? Why make me dot my
i's and cross my t's, so to speak?"

"It seems to me it wants a few words to make it plain when a woman
refuses to give her husband a kiss."

"Do sit down, there's a good fellow, and I'll tell you one or two
things."

"That's terribly kind of you," he said, sinking into the r