late," declared our elder joy.

"Mine was marshmallows!" piped the echo.

"Little Woman," I said, "our dinner is getting cold; suppose we eat
it."

XI.

_Inheritance and Mania._

And now came one of these episodes which sometimes disturb the
sequestered quiet of even the best regulated and most conventional of
households. We were notified one day that my Aunt Jane, whom I believe I
have once before mentioned having properly arranged her affairs had
passed serenely out of life at an age and in a manner that left nothing
to be desired.

I was sorry, of course,--as sorry as it was possible to be, considering
the fact that she had left me a Sum which though not large was absurdly
welcome. I did not sleep very well until it came, fearing there might
be some hitch in administrating the will, but there was no hitch (my
Aunt Jane, heaven rest her spirit, had been too thoroughly business for
that) and the Sum came along in due season.

We would keep this Sum, we decided, as a sinking fund; something to have
in the savings bank, to be added to, from time to time, as a provision
for the future and our Precious Ones. This seemed a good idea at the
time, and it seems so yet, for that matter. I have never been able to
discover that there is anything wrong with having money in a good
savings bank.

I _put_ the Sum in a good savings bank, and we were briefly satisfied
with our prudence. It gave us a sort of safe feeling to know that it was
there, to be had almost instantly, in case of need.

It was this latter knowledge that destroyed us. When the novelty of
feeling safe had worn off we began to need the Sum. Casually at first,
coming as a mere suggestion, in fact, from one or the other of us, of
what we could buy with it. It is wonderful how many things we were
constantly seeing that the Sum would pay for.

Our furniture, for instance, had grown old without becoming antique, and
was costly only when you reckon what we had paid for moving it. We had
gradually acquired a taste (or it may have been only the need of a
taste) for the real thing. Whatever it was it seemed expensive--too
expensive to be gratified heretofore, but now that we had the Sum----

The shops along Fourth Avenue were literally bulging with things that we
coveted and that the Sum would pay for. I looked at them wistfully in
passing, still passing strong in my resolution to let the Sum lie
untouched. Then I began to linger and go in, and to imagin