his sacrifice. But Estelle had without so
many compliments informed him that he was not to accept. She had
particular reasons, she darkly enlightened him, for the request.

So, with a paltry excuse, he jumped out of the carriage before it
reached the gate, and stood looking after it, holding his hat--the
glossy _tuba_ which Giovanna had with her elbow stroked and stroked
the right way of the silk, when she laid out her signorino's outfit for
the wedding.

Earlier than usual after dinner Estelle retired, "to write up her
diary," she said. Tom was left to have with Aurora that conversation
which Estelle had besought him to have, and of which by a significant
motion of the face she had reminded him before leaving the room. He came
to the point very soon, the sooner to get it over.

"Nell," he said, and, leaning back, with one arm flung along the top of
the sofa, the other offering to his lips a thick cigar, waited long
enough for her to wonder what was coming, "you spend too much money."

Without shadow of attempt at evasion, she said:

"Tom, I do."

"You've got to retrench, girl. You've got to be more careful."

"Yes, I suppose I've got to."

"Let's be practical. How are you going to do it?"

"I don't know, Tom. It's so easy to spend and so hard to hold on to your
money! If any one had told me a year ago I could get rid of as much
money in one year as I have done, I shouldn't have known how I could do
it without opening the window and throwing it out."

"Well, I'm glad you don't deny a bent toward extravagance."

"I don't deny anything that means I spend a lot of money. I have more
sense. The facts are there."

"You've already broken into your capital, haven't you?"

"Did Hattie tell you that or did you guess? It's true, I have; but--"
she tried to place the harm done in a harmless light--"it isn't so bad
but that if I saved for a little while I could make it up again."

"If! True; but are you going to, Nell? That's the question."

"Oh, Tom, I never ought to have been given any money if I was to hold on
to it!" Aurora almost groaned. "I didn't know at first. I was pleased as
Punch. I lay awake nights just to gloat and feel grand. I tell
_you_, I meant to hold on to it! I tell _you_, it wasn't going
to get away from me after that good fight we made for it! But--" the
effect of a mental groan was repeated--"the whole thing isn't as I
thought it would be, not a bit."

She stopped, and while she tried to co