d
spent it on travelling, on lace, on old china, on dress, on hothouse
flowers, on a stable which was three times larger than she could
possibly require, on a household in which there were a good many more
cats than were wanted to catch mice, on bounties and charities that
were given upon no principle, not even from inclination, but only
because Squire Tempest's widow had never been able to say No.

Captain Winstanley's first retrenchment had been the sale of Bullfinch,
for which noble animal Lord Mallow, a young Irish viscount, had given a
cheque for three hundred guineas. This money the Captain put on deposit
at his banker's, by way of a nest-egg. He meant his deposit account to
grow into something worth investing before those seven fat years were
half gone.

He told his wife his views on the financial question one morning when
they were breakfasting _tete-a-tete_ in the library, where the Squire
and his family had always dined when there was no company. Captain and
Mrs. Winstanley generally had the privilege of breakfasting alone, as
Violet was up and away before her mother appeared. The Captain also was
an early riser, and had done half his day's work before he sat down to
the luxurious nine-o'clock breakfast with his wife.

"I have been thinking of your ponies, pet," he said, in a pleasant
voice, half careless, half caressing, as he helped himself to a salmon
cutlet. "Don't you think it would be a very wise thing to get rid of
them?"

"Oh, Conrad!" cried his wife, letting the water from the urn overflow
the teapot in her astonishment; "you can't mean that! Part with my
ponies?"

"My dear love, how often do you drive them in a twelvemonth?"

"Not very often, perhaps. I have felt rather nervous driving
lately--carts and great waggon-loads of hay come out upon one so
suddenly from cross-roads. I don't think the waggoners would care a bit
if one were killed. But I am very fond of my gray ponies. They are so
pretty. They have quite Arabian heads. Colonel Carteret says so, and he
has been in Arabia."

"But, my dear Pamela, do you think it worth while keeping a pair of
ponies because they are pretty, and because Colonel Carteret, who knows
about as much of a horse as I do of a megalosaurus says they have
Arabian heads? Have you ever calculated what those ponies cost you?"

"No, Conrad; I should hate myself if I were always calculating the cost
of things."

"Yes, that's all very well in the abstract. But if you