that little archetype of
a cottage on the heights of Wimbledon-common, in which she and
Valentine were to live when they were married. She was always
furnishing and refurnishing this cottage, building it up and pulling it
down, as the caprice of the moment dictated. Now it had bow-windows and
white stuccoed walls--now it was Elizabethan--now the simplest,
quaintest, rose-embowered cottager's dwelling, with diamond-paned
casements, and deep thatch on the old gray roof. This afternoon she
amused herself by collecting a small library for Valentine, while
waiting Mr. Sheldon's next observation. He was to have all her
favourite books, of course; and they were to be bound in the prettiest,
most girlish bindings. She could see the dainty volumes, primly ranged
on the little carved oak bookcase, which Valentine was to "pick up" in
Wardour-street. She fancied herself walking down that mart of
bric-a-brac arm-in-arm with her lover, intent on "picking up." Ah, what
happiness! what dear delight in the thought! And O, of all the bright
dreams we dream, how few are realised upon this earth! Do they find
their fulfilment in heaven, those visions of perfect bliss?

Mr. Sheldon looked up from his desk at last. Miss Halliday remarked to
herself that his face was pale and haggard in the chill wintry
sunlight; but she knew how hard and self-denying a life he led in his
stern devotion to business, and she was in no manner surprised to see
him looking ill.

"I want to say a few words to you on a matter of business, Lotta," he
began, "and I must ask you to give me all your attention."

"I will do so with pleasure, papa, but I am awfully stupid about
business."

"I shall do my best to make matters simple. I suppose you know what
money your father left, including the sums his life had been insured
for?"

"Yes, I have heard mamma say it was eighteen thousand pounds. I do so
hate the idea of those insurances. It seems like the price of a man's
life, doesn't it? I daresay that is a very unbusiness-like way of
considering the question, but I cannot bear to think that we got money
by dear papa's death."

These remarks were too trivial for Mr. Sheldon's notice. He went on
with what he had to say in the cold hard voice that was familiar to his
clerks and to the buyers and sellers of shares and stock who had
dealings with him.

"Your father left eighteen thousand pounds; that amount was left to
your mother without reservation. When she marri