--but again I abstain from dwelling upon those
circumstances of the engaged which are familiar to you all."

"The change of May into June, and the change of June into July, did
not mellow Ethel's bitter feelings. I remember the day after Petunias
defaulted on their interest that she exclaimed, 'I hope I shall never
meet her!' We always called Mr. Beverly's mother 'she' now. 'For if I
were to meet her,' continued Ethel, 'I feel I should say something that
I should regret. Oh, Richard, I suppose we shall have to give up that
house on Park Avenue!'"

"I put a cheerful and even insular face on the matter, for I could not
bear to see Ethel so depressed. But it was hard work for me. Some few
of my investments were evidently good; but it always seemed as if it was
into these that I had happened to put not much money, while the bulk
of my fortune was entangled in the others. Besides the usual Midsummer
faintness that overtakes the stock market, my own specialties were a
good deal more than faint. On the 20th of August I took the afternoon
train to spend my two weeks' holiday at Lenox; and during much of the
journey I gazed at the Wall Street edition of the afternoon paper that
I had purchased as I came through the Grand Central Station. Ethel and I
read it in the evening."

"'I wonder what she's buying now?' said Ethel, vindictively."

"'Well, I can't help feeling sorry for her,' I answered, with as much of
a smile as I could produce."

"'That is so unnecessary, Richard! She can easily afford to gratify her
gambling instinct.'"

"'There you go, Ethel, inventing millions for her just as you invented
grandchildren.'"

"'Not at all. Unless she constantly had money lying idle, she could not
take these continual plunges. She is an old woman with few expenses, and
she lives well within her income. You would hear of her entertaining if
it was otherwise. So instead of conservatively investing her surplus,
she makes ducks and drakes of it in her son's office. Is he at Hyde Park
now?' Hyde Park was where the old Beverly country seat had always been."

"'No,' I answered. 'He went to Europe early last month.'"

"'Very likely he took her with him. She is probably at Monte Carlo.'"

"'Scarcely in August, I fancy. And I'll tell you what, Ethel. I have
been counting it up. She has lost twenty-four thousand dollars in the
Standard Egg alone. It takes a good deal of surplus to stand that.'"

"'Serve her right,' said Ethel 'And I woul