ich you should recognize and accept. If
you had but trained yourself now, by the study of philosophical works,
to know how helpless you are to alter the facts of life, and how it is
the best wisdom to be prepared for the worst, you would find nothing
horrible in thinking of your own funeral. You are not looking well."

Sheila was startled by the suddenness of the announcement: "Perhaps I
am a little tired with the traveling we have done to-day."

"Is Frank Lavender kind to you?" What was she to say with those two
eyes scanning her face? "It is too soon to expect him to be anything
else," she said with an effort at a smile.

"Ah! So you are beginning to talk in that way? I thought you were full
of sentimental notions of life when you came to London. It is not a
good place for nurturing such things."

"It is not," said Sheila, surprised into a sigh.

"Come nearer. Don't be afraid I shall bite you. I am not so ferocious
as I look."

Sheila rose and went closer to the bedside, and the old woman
stretched out a lean and withered hand to her: "If I thought that that
silly fellow wasn't behaving well to you--"

"I will not listen to you," said Sheila, suddenly withdrawing her
hand, while a quick color leapt to her face--"I will not listen to you
if you speak of my husband in that way."

"I will speak of him any way I like. Don't get into a rage. I have
known Frank Lavender a good deal longer than you have. What I was
going to say is this--that if I thought that he was not behaving well
to you, I would play him a trick. I would leave my money, which is all
he has got to live on, to you; and when I died he would find himself
dependent on you for every farthing he wanted to spend."

And the old woman laughed, with very little of the weakness of an
invalid in the look of her face. But Sheila, when she had mastered
her surprise and resolved not be angry, said calmly, "Whatever I have,
whatever I might have, that belongs to my husband, not to me."

"Now you speak like a sensible girl," said Mrs. Lavender. "That is the
misfortune of a wife, that she cannot keep her own money to herself.
But there are means by which the law may be defeated, my dear. I have
been thinking it over--I have been speaking of it to Mr. Ingram; for
I have suspected for some time that my nephew, Mr. Frank, was not
behaving himself."

"Mrs. Lavender," said Sheila, with a face too proud and indignant
for tears, "you do not understand me. No one has