y as much as that for one woman? Oh, I suppose I'm fond of her--as
men are of their sisters. She is not a bad sort--mean as her name, and
never fond of parting with her money--but stands by a fellow in a kind
of a way all the same."

"I'll never call her Jew," said Elinor; "and, Phil, all this wonderful
amount of things you have to do is simply--nothing. What do you ever
do? It is the people who do things that have time to spare. I know
one----"

"Don't come down on me, Nell, again with that eternal Cousin John."

"Phil! I never think of him till you put him into my head. I was
thinking of a gentleman who writes----"

"Rubbish, Nell! What have I to do with men that write, or you either? We
are none of us of that sort. I do what my set do, and more--for there
was this director business; and I should never mind a bit of work that
was well paid, like attending Board meetings and so forth, or signing my
name to papers."

"What, without reading them, Phil?"

"Don't come over a fellow with your cleverness, Nell! I am not a reader;
but I should take good care I knew what was in the papers before I
signed them, I can tell you. Eh! you'd like me to slave, to get you
luxuries, you little exacting Nell."

"Yes, Phil," she said, "I'd like to think you were working for our
living. I should indeed. It seems somehow so much finer--so real a life.
And I should work at home."

"A great deal you would work," he said, laughing, "with those scraps
of fingers! Let's hear what you would do--bits of little pictures, or
impossible things in pincushions, or so forth--and walk out in your most
becoming bonnet to force them down some poor shop-keeper's throat?"

"Phil!" she said, "how contemptuous you are of my efforts. But I never
thought of either sketches or pincushions. I should work at home to keep
the house nice--to look after the servants, and guide the cook, and see
that you had nice dinners."

"And warm my slippers by the parlour fire," said Phil. "That's too
domestic, Nell, for you and me."

"But we are going to be very domestic, Phil."

"Are we? Not if I knows it; yawn our heads off, and get to hate one
another. Not for me, Nell. You'll find yourself up to the eyes in
engagements before you know where you are. No, no, old girl, you may do
a deal with me, but you don't make a domestic man of Phil Compton. Time
enough for that when we've had our fling."

"I don't want any fling, Phil," she said, clinging a little closer t