eye, I want to make
everything run smooth, like on greased wheels, and to have all the faces
around me look pleased, and everybody liking me. I love the feeling of
luxury and festivity, and oh, I just love a grand good time! That's what
the money was given to me for, wasn't it, so that I could have a grand
good time? But when I've indulged myself, Tom, I wouldn't have the face,
if I had the heart, to say no to anybody that came along and wanted me
to indulge them, too. Now, I don't want you to go thinking this is
generosity, Tom, or a good heart, or that I have any sneaking idea in my
own bosom that it's anything of the sort. I'd be a
regular--low-down--soggy--sinful sowbug, I'd be too dirt-mean to live,
if I pretended it was that. When I was poor I never was generous; I
never thought of it. I worked hard for what I got; and was in the same
boat exactly as the rest; I was entitled to the little bit I'd worked
for. But now it's different. It's like I'd won the big prize in the
lottery. I can't be stingy with it and not blush. I can't sit there like
a swollen wood-tick and be rich all by myself."

"All right, Nell; all right. It's a perfectly understandable way of
looking at it, if it is rather far-fetched. But good-by to the
hard-earned thousands. You won't have a smitch of them left."

"Good-by, then, and good riddance!" cried Aurora violently, almost
pettishly. "I don't really like them, anyhow. It's too easy just to
write your name on a check. At first I thought I was living in a
fairy-tale; but once you've got used to it, it doesn't compare with the
fun you get the old-fashioned way, working hard for a thing, and
planning, and going to price it, and saving, and finally getting it, and
that proud! People who haven't been poor simply don't know. Why, that
one poor little silver bangle I had when I was fifteen did more to give
me pure joy than any of the beautiful things I've bought this whole last
year. I'm sorry if it seems ungrateful to my bloated bank-account, but
it's true. Another thing, Tom. I was brought up to work. I won't say I
liked it. I don't think many people who've got to work do like it. But
since I gave it up, nothing I've found has really filled its place to
give me an appetite and the feeling I'd a right to a good time. To sit
back and let others work while you fan your face--I can't help it, I
feel a sort of disgrace in it. I know better, it's just the way I
_feel_. I know all the while that's the w