o have
one of the Bernards--not dangerously so, of course, but just enough ill
to feel dependent on the one woman in the family. Even to be ill
oneself would have points. She would sit propped up against her best
pillow covers, wearing a distracting bed jacket and cap, and Bernard
would come in, and look at her, and say,--What would he say?
Cassandra's smile was twisted with a pathetic humour. "Holloa, old
girl. Got 'em _all_ on! Bucking up a bit, ain't you? I'm off for a
ride..." Rather a tame denouement to which to look forward as the
reward for weeks of suffering! Cassandra determined on the whole that
she would rather keep well.

And the two Bernards,--what sort of convalescents would they make?
Cassandra drew a mental picture of the sick room, with the older patient
stretched on a couch, and herself seated by his side, a devoted and
assiduous nurse, but there was an obstinate commonplaceness about father
and son which refused to adapt itself to the scene. Bernard would have
no reflections to make on the wonder of life restored; he would want to
hear the _Sporting Times_ read aloud, and the latest news of the crops.
His tenderest acknowledgment of her care would be a, "Looking a bit
peaked, old girl! What's the sense of paying a nurse and doing the work
yourself?" As for the boy, he would talk cricket, be politely bored,
and surreptitiously wipe off kisses. Cassandra determined that on the
whole the two Bernards had better keep well also!

As for poverty--one would certainly have enough to do to run a house on
a few hundreds a year, but though viewed generally the prospect sounded
picturesque, a definite narrowing down to a comparison with one of the
many Chumley homesteads, brought a quick shudder of distaste. The
narrow rooms, the inferior servants, the infinitesimal gardens,--
Cassandra thrust out her hands in horror of the thought, and laughed a
soft, full-throated laugh.

"If I am bound to be dissatisfied, let me at least have room to be
dissatisfied in! I could bear being stinted in almost anything rather
than _space_. If Bernard loses his money, we'll go abroad and live on a
prairie,--anything rather than a stifling villa."

She turned her head as the door opened, and her husband entered, and
crossed the room to a bureau in the far corner. He wore the usual tweed
suit, the Norfolk jacket accentuating his increasing width, the loose
knickerbockers revealing large, well-shaped legs. His ski