tractive at seventeen.

"For the last time, Leonie, I want you to listen to me!"

"Other way round, Auntie," said Leonie, who had chosen the club, of all
places, for a last _tete-a-tete_ with her relation, in the hope that
the presence of others would serve as a dam to the flood of tears which
had streamed almost unceasingly during the last month.

"But it's absurd, idiotic----"

"Auntie, dear, we've been through all that a hundred times, and a
hundred million times more won't make me change. I will _not_ touch a
penny of Sir Walter's money----"

"Oh! Leonie, your _husband_!"

"Not my husband in any sense at all, except for the awful name.
Why"--and she spoke with sweet intense enthusiasm--"do you know they
are going to build a house in Devon for blind babies out of my marriage
settlement, and endow it, and have resident teachers--think of it----"

Leonie broke off to manipulate the tea-things to the rhythm of a
one-step.

"And all the rest of the money, Leonie, oh! it's scandalous!"

"Oh, that!" said Leonie, manoeuvring the milk out of a broken milk-jug.
"Except for Sir Walter's special bequests, it all goes back to the
family. They've almost all come to see me at the hotel, such honest,
nice people; and oh! so grateful. Mrs. Sam Hickle is moving to Balham
from the Waterloo Road to open a fruit shop, she brought me a huge
basket of vegetables, carried it into my room herself; and a young Bert
Hickle, who has a whelk-barrow in the Borough, brought me a whole
turbot which had soaked through its newspaper wrapping. He gave it to
the page-boy to carry, and I _do_ wish you had seen their faces when
the tail suddenly burst through, just as the page-boy was gingerly
laying it down on a most appropriate resting-place, a marble consol."

Leonie laughed just as the music stopped, a ringing, happy laugh which
caused people to stare and then nudge, or kick each other
surreptitiously as they recognised her.

"It's all settled about you, Auntiekins. I'm paying your debts, which
aren't so terrific, only foolish, and giving you five hundred pounds to
go on with. That, with your own income, will be all right if only you
will live in the country instead of hanging on to the edge of a society
which doesn't want you. Still, you do exactly as you like, dear, only
remember that I shall only have just enough to live on when I've got
through the thousand pounds, and don't run up any more debts."

"Why not _invest_ the th