nises a perfect thing--one
recognises one's affinity. One knows when one is hit. I 'm in love
with her. Give me your sympathy and counsel."

"You have my sympathy. What counsel do you wish?"

"What shall I do?" asked Anthony. "Drown myself? Take to drink?"

"I should n't drown myself," said Miss Sandus. "Drowning is so wet and
chilly; and I 'm told it's frightfully unbecoming, into the bargain.
As for drink, I hear it's nothing like what it's cracked up to be."

"I daresay it is n't," admitted Anthony, with a sigh. "I suppose
there's not the ghost of a chance for me?" he gloomed.

"H'm," said Miss Sandus.

"I suppose it would be madness on my part to speak to her?" he pursued.

"That would depend a good deal, I should think, on the nature of what
you said," his counsellor suggested, smiling.

"If I said point-blank I loved her--?"

Miss Sandus looked hard at the fire, her brows drawn together,
pondering. Her brows were drawn together, but the _vis comica_ played
about her lips.

"I think, if I were in your place, I should try it," she decided at
last.

"_Would_ you?" said Anthony, surprised, encouraged. But, in a second,
despondency had closed round him again. "You see," he signified, "the
situation is uncommonly delicate--one 's at a double and twisted
disadvantage."

"How so?" Miss Sandus asked, looking up.

"She's established here for the summer. I, of all men, must n't be the
one to make Craford impossible for her."

"I see," said Miss Sandus. "Yes, there's that to be thought of."

"There 's such a deuced lot of things to be thought of," said he,
despairingly.

"Let's hear the deuced lot," said the lady, with business-like
cheerfulness.

"Well, to begin with," he brought out painfully, "there 's the fact
that she 's rich."

"Yes, she's rich," conceded Miss Sandus. "Does that diminish her
attractions?"

"You know what I mean," groaned Anthony, with no heart for trifling.

"For the matter of that, are n't you rich yourself?" Miss Sandus
retorted.

"Rich!" he cried. "I totter on the brink of destitution."

"Oh?" she murmured. "I 'd imagined you were by way of being rather an
extensive land owner."

"So I am," said he. "And my rather extensive lands, what with
shrinkages and mortgages, with wages, pensions, subscriptions, and
general expenses,--I doubt if they yield a net income of fifteen
hundred a year. And I 've not a stiver else in the world."

"Poor, poor young man