It's wisdom, Aleck, solid wisdom, and sound as a nut. Who's
your fish? Have you nominated him yet?"

No, she hadn't. They must look the market over--which they did. To start
with, they considered and discussed Brandish, rising young lawyer, and
Fulton, rising young dentist. Sally must invite them to dinner. But not
right away; there was no hurry, Aleck said. Keep an eye on the pair, and
wait; nothing would be lost by going slowly in so important a matter.

It turned out that this was wisdom, too; for inside of three weeks Aleck
made a wonderful strike which swelled her imaginary hundred thousand
to four hundred thousand of the same quality. She and Sally were in the
clouds that evening. For the first time they introduced champagne at
dinner. Not real champagne, but plenty real enough for the amount of
imagination expended on it. It was Sally that did it, and Aleck weakly
submitted. At bottom both were troubled and ashamed, for he was a
high-up Son of Temperance, and at funerals wore an apron which no dog
could look upon and retain his reason and his opinion; and she was a
W. C. T. U., with all that that implies of boiler-iron virtue and
unendurable holiness. But there is was; the pride of riches was
beginning its disintegrating work. They had lived to prove, once more,
a sad truth which had been proven many times before in the world: that
whereas principle is a great and noble protection against showy and
degrading vanities and vices, poverty is worth six of it. More than
four hundred thousand dollars to the good. They took up the matrimonial
matter again. Neither the dentist nor the lawyer was mentioned; there
was no occasion, they were out of the running. Disqualified. They
discussed the son of the pork-packer and the son of the village banker.
But finally, as in the previous case, they concluded to wait and think,
and go cautiously and sure.

Luck came their way again. Aleck, ever watchful saw a great and risky
chance, and took a daring flyer. A time of trembling, of doubt, of awful
uneasiness followed, for non-success meant absolute ruin and nothing
short of it. Then came the result, and Aleck, faint with joy, could
hardly control her voice when she said:

"The suspense is over, Sally--and we are worth a cold million!"

Sally wept for gratitude, and said:

"Oh, Electra, jewel of women, darling of my heart, we are free at last,
we roll in wealth, we need never scrimp again. It's a case for Veuve
Cliquot!" and