rkable things that happened to Dr. and
Mrs. Staines were really those which I have related as connecting them
with Phoebe Dale and her brother; to which I will now add that Dr.
Staines detailed Dick's case in a remarkable paper, entitled "Oedema of
the Glottis," and showed how the patient had been brought back from
the grave by tracheotomy and artificial respiration. He received a high
price for this article.

To tell the truth, he was careful not to admit that it was he who had
opened the windpipe; so the credit of the whole operation was given to
Mr. Jenkyn; and this gentleman was naturally pleased, and threw a good
many consultation fees in Staines's way.

The Lucases, to his great comfort--for he had an instinctive aversion to
Miss Lucas--left London for Paris in August, and did not return all the
year.

In February he reviewed his year's work and twelve months' residence in
the Bijou. The pecuniary result was, outgoings, nine hundred and fifty
pounds; income, from fees, two hundred and eighty pounds; writing,
ninety pounds.

He showed these figures to Mrs. Staines, and asked her if she
could suggest any diminution of expenditure. Could she do with less
housekeeping money?

"Oh, impossible! You cannot think how the servants eat; and they won't
touch our home-made bread."

"The fools! Why?"

"Oh, because they think it costs us less. Servants seem to me always to
hate the people whose bread they eat."

"More likely it is their vanity. Nothing that is not paid for before
their eyes seems good enough for them. Well, dear, the bakers will
revenge us. But is there any other item we could reduce? Dress?"

"Dress! Why, I spend nothing."

"Forty-five pounds this year."

"Well, I shall want none next year."

"Well, then, Rosa, as there is nothing we can reduce, I must write more,
and take more fees, or we shall be in the wrong box. Only eight hundred
and sixty pounds left of our little capital; and, mind, we have not
another shilling in the world. One comfort, there is no debt. We pay
ready money for everything."

Rosa colored a little, but said nothing.

Staines did his part nobly. He read; he wrote; he paced the yard. He
wore his old clothes in the house; he took off his new ones when he came
in. He was all genius, drudgery, patience.

How Phoebe Dale would have valued him, co-operated with him, and petted
him, if she had had the good luck to be his wife!

The season came back, and with it Miss Lucas,