ir, and
four for everything else, except when she wears laced-up boots; but
then, she has principles, and I have none; at least, I have no maxims.
And this morning, just because there were lots of things to do, I was
luxuriating in the tub, thinking cool, delicious thoughts.

As a general rule, when you paint glorious pictures for yourself of your
future as you would like it to be, it clouds your existence with gray
afterwards, because the reality is duller by contrast; but it was
different this morning. I had stopped awake all night thinking the same
things, and I was no more tired of the thoughts now than when I first
began.

I lay with my eyes shut, sniffing Eau de Cologne (I'd poured in a
bottleful for a kind of libation, because I could afford to be
extravagant), and planning what a delightful future we would have.

"I should love to chop up Phil's type-writer and burn the remains," I
said to myself; "but she's much more likely to put it away in lavender,
or give it to the next-door-girl with the snub nose. Anyhow, I shall
never have to write another serial story for _Queen-Woman_, or _The
Fireside Lamp_, or any of the other horrors. Oh the joy of not being
forced to create villains, only to crush them in the end! No more secret
doors and coiners' dens, and unnaturally beautiful dressmakers'
assistants for me! Instead of doing typing at ninepence a thousand words
Phil can embroider things for curates, and instead of peopling the world
with prigs and puppets at a guinea a thou', I can--oh, I can do
_anything_. I don't know what I shall want to do most, and that's the
best of it--just to know I _can_ do it. We'll have a beautiful house in
a nice part of town, a cottage by the river, and, best of all, we can
travel--travel--travel."

Then I began to furnish the cottage and the house, and was putting up a
purple curtain in a white marble bath-room with steps down to the bath,
when a knock came at the door.

I knew it was Phil, for it could be nobody else; but it was as unlike
Phil as possible--as unlike her as a mountain is unlike itself when it
is having an eruption.

"Nell," she called outside the door. "Nell, darling! Are you ready?"

"Only just begun," I answered. "I shall be--oh, minutes and minutes yet.
Why?"

"I don't want to worry you," replied Phil's creamy voice, with just a
little of the cream skimmed off; "but--do make haste."

"Have you been cooking something nice for breakfast?" (Our usual meal