t us? I don't
know a great deal about these things, but if it's any standard to
take--well, my old landlady used to give me rooms and breakfasts and
dinners for thirty bob a week. Jolly good breakfasts and dinners they
were, too!"

Marie murmured very slowly: "I'm not your old landlady." She imaged
her, a working drab, saving, pinching, and making the best of all
things. Compare Marie with Osborn's old landlady! "Besides," she
murmured on, "there's me, too, now."

Osborn nodded. "Well," he said, "how much do you think?"

"Thirty shillings for _both_ of us per week," said Marie,
inclined to cry. "That's better than your old landlady."

Osborn hastened to soothe her. "Look here," he protested, "don't fuss
over it, there's a love. Very well, I'll give you thirty bob a week,
but that's seventy-eight pounds a year. My hat! I say, can't you
squeeze the gas out of it?"

"I _will_ get the gas out of it!" said Marie, with tightened
lips.

"Great business!" said Osborn cheering; "put it down, darling."

So under the "Rent, forty pounds," she wrote, "Housekeeping, including
gas, seventy-eight pounds."

"That's one hundred and eighteen pounds out of my two hundred," said
Osborn, knitting his brows and staring into the fire.

"Coal?" whispered Marie, her pencil poised.

Osborn's stare at the fire took on a belligerent nature.

"I say!" he exclaimed, "we can't have two fires every day. It's simply
not to be thought of."

"We'll sit in the dining-room in the evenings."

"Put down 'Coal, ten pounds,'" said Osborn grudgingly.

When Marie had put it down, she cast a sorrowing look round her dear
little room. She would hardly ever use it, except in summer.

"That's close on a hundred and thirty pounds," said Osborn. "We'll
make allowance for that, but you'll try to do on less, won't you,
darling?"

"I'll try."

"That leaves seventy pounds for my life insurance, and for my expenses
and yours, Marie. A man ought to insure his life when he's married;
it'll cost me fifteen pounds a year."

"Oh, what a greedy world!" cried Marie, despairing tears running down
her face.

Osborn kissed them away, but remained much preoccupied.

"It leaves fifty-five pounds between us for my clothes and lunches,
and travelling, and your pocket money."

"How about your commission, Osborn? Your 'extras'?"

"With luck they'll pay for a decent holiday once a year or so."

Marie suddenly readjusted her scheme of life while she sat blindl