ne, mine, mine--all of you mine."

She laid them out in a row on the ledge of the table, or arranged them
in patterns--triangles, circles, and squares--or built them all up into
a pyramid which she afterward overthrew for the sake of hearing the
delicious clink of the pieces tumbling against each other. Then at last
she put them away in the brass match-box and chamois bag, delighted
beyond words that they were once more full and heavy.

Then, a few days after, the thought of the money still remaining in
Uncle Oelbermann's keeping returned to her. It was hers, all hers--all
that four thousand six hundred. She could have as much of it or as
little of it as she chose. She only had to ask. For a week Trina
resisted, knowing very well that taking from her capital was
proportionately reducing her monthly income. Then at last she yielded.

"Just to make it an even five hundred, anyhow," she told herself. That
day she drew a hundred dollars more, in twenty-dollar gold pieces as
before. From that time Trina began to draw steadily upon her capital, a
little at a time. It was a passion with her, a mania, a veritable mental
disease; a temptation such as drunkards only know.

It would come upon her all of a sudden. While she was about her work,
scrubbing the floor of some vacant house; or in her room, in the
morning, as she made her coffee on the oil stove, or when she woke in
the night, a brusque access of cupidity would seize upon her. Her cheeks
flushed, her eyes glistened, her breath came short. At times she would
leave her work just as it was, put on her old bonnet of black straw,
throw her shawl about her, and go straight to Uncle Oelbermann's store
and draw against her money. Now it would be a hundred dollars, now
sixty; now she would content herself with only twenty; and once, after a
fortnight's abstinence, she permitted herself a positive debauch of five
hundred. Little by little she drew her capital from Uncle Oelbermann,
and little by little her original interest of twenty-five dollars a
month dwindled.

One day she presented herself again in the office of the whole-sale toy
store.

"Will you let me have a check for two hundred dollars, Uncle
Oelbermann?" she said.

The great man laid down his fountain pen and leaned back in his swivel
chair with great deliberation.

"I don't understand, Mrs. McTeague," he said. "Every week you come here
and draw out a little of your money. I've told you that it is not at all
r