spoken of her.

"There, dear," she said to Mrs. Hartley one morning, spreading out
before her friend the cheque which she had just received from Mr.
MacAlpine, "you told me that my stupid book had given me nothing more
than a nervous fever, but this has come also to pay the doctor's bill.
Is it not a great deal of money? What a lucky thing that I went in for
half profits, and did not take the paltry fifty pounds which they
offered me?"

"Ah, you need not twit me with what I said before I knew what your book
was made of," said Mrs. Hartley affectionately. "How was I to know that
you could write a novel, when you had only told me that you could
translate a German philosopher? The two things do not sound particularly
harmonious, do they?"

"I suppose I must have made a happy hit with my subject, though I never
thought I had whilst I was writing. I only went straight on, and had not
the least idea that people would find much to like in it. Nor had Mr.
MacAlpine either, for he did not seem at all anxious to publish it."

"It was in you, my darling, and would come out. You have discovered a
mine, and I daresay you can dig as much gold out of it as will suffice
to make you happy."

"Now, what shall we do with this money? We must have a big treat; and I
am going to manage and pay for everything myself starting from to-day.
Shall it be Rome, or the Riviera, or the Engadine; or what do you say to
returning by way of Germany? I do so long to see the Germans at home."

Mrs. Hartley was downcast at once.

"The first thing you want to do with your wealth," she said, "is to make
me feel uncomfortable! Have we not been happy together these six months,
and can you not leave well alone? You know that I am a rich woman,
through no credit of my own--for everything I have came from my husband.
If you talk of spending your money on anyone but yourself, I shall think
that you are pining for independence again, and we may as well pack up
our things and get home."

"Oh dear, what have I said? I did not mean it, my dearest friend--my
best friend in the world! I won't say anything like it again: but I must
go out and spend some money, or I shall not believe in my good fortune.
Can you lend me ten pounds?"

"Yes, that I can!"

"Then let us put our things on, and go into paradise."

"What very dissolute idea, to be sure! But come along. If you will be so
impulsive, I may as well go to take care of you."

So they went out together--t