h away and a recherche, big base-burner with
isinglass windows take position and spread awe around. And we should
have seen other things, too; among them the buggy, the lap-robe, the
stove-pipe hat, and so on.

From that time forth, although the daughters and the neighbors saw only
the same old wooden house there, it was a two-story brick to Aleck
and Sally and not a night went by that Aleck did not worry about the
imaginary gas-bills, and get for all comfort Sally's reckless retort:
"What of it? We can afford it."

Before the couple went to bed, that first night that they were rich,
they had decided that they must celebrate. They must give a party--that
was the idea. But how to explain it--to the daughters and the neighbors?
They could not expose the fact that they were rich. Sally was willing,
even anxious, to do it; but Aleck kept her head and would not allow it.
She said that although the money was as good as in, it would be as well
to wait until it was actually in. On that policy she took her stand, and
would not budge. The great secret must be kept, she said--kept from the
daughters and everybody else.

The pair were puzzled. They must celebrate, they were determined to
celebrate, but since the secret must be kept, what could they celebrate?
No birthdays were due for three months. Tilbury wasn't available,
evidently he was going to live forever; what the nation COULD they
celebrate? That was Sally's way of putting it; and he was getting
impatient, too, and harassed. But at last he hit it--just by sheer
inspiration, as it seemed to him--and all their troubles were gone in a
moment; they would celebrate the Discovery of America. A splendid idea!

Aleck was almost too proud of Sally for words--she said SHE never would
have thought of it. But Sally, although he was bursting with delight in
the compliment and with wonder at himself, tried not to let on, and said
it wasn't really anything, anybody could have done it. Whereat Aleck,
with a prideful toss of her happy head, said:

"Oh, certainly! Anybody could--oh, anybody! Hosannah Dilkins, for
instance! Or maybe Adelbert Peanut--oh, DEAR--yes! Well, I'd like to
see them try it, that's all. Dear-me-suz, if they could think of the
discovery of a forty-acre island it's more than _I_ believe they could;
and as for the whole continent, why, Sally Foster, you know perfectly
well it would strain the livers and lights out of them and THEN they
couldn't!"

The dear woman,