r. If she prepared all his meals
for him besides, the one thing might be set off against the other, and
part of his wages go towards it--he must himself reckon up and say how
much he thought.

Barbara continued more eagerly to build up in her own mind, and
emphasising now and then with a smack of her hand, how everything was to
be.

But as she waxed warmer and more elated over her visions of the future,
Nikolai sat doubtful, and softly beating a measure with his foot. All
this about the shop might be right enough. His mother must surely
understand it, she who had been at the Veyergangs', and had now,
moreover, talked to the Consul himself. But the more she initiated him
into her plans, and in them appropriated him entirely to herself, and
talked away as if there could be no obstacle in any corner of the
heavens, the wider did the gulf between their wills and interests open
before him. She came with a mother's long-dispensed-with right, and just
now he knew in his heart that he belonged still more to another, and
must go his own way.

She could not know that she was coming upon nails the whole time in the
wall, so he would have to speak out.

"Well, you see, mother"--he looked down at the floor--"you're welcome to
my money, if only it's certain I get it back again by the new year, so
there's nothing to hinder that. But, you know, why I must have it again
is--is because I and Mrs. Holman's Silla have agreed to marry and settle
down. And I'm quite determined about it, for I've worked and toiled for
that, ever since Holman died; and it would be ill for me if I had to be
without her."

His sharp, grey eyes shot a glance up at her, and the mother
instinctively felt that here was a will that had escaped from her hands.

This was something that had never entered into her plans.

In order to remove her dissatisfaction, he let her have his thirty
dollars before she went.

There is a branch of trade in the narrow streets and outskirts, whose
position is one storey higher than the stall-woman. It sells its wares
from a house, comprises, according to legislation, a great many more
effects, and allows the individual concerned to lead a more comfortable
existence, with a step farther from hand to mouth; that is to say, it
gains, instead of a day's credit or a weekly settlement, a week's credit
or a monthly settlement.

It was in this small trade that Barbara wanted to start, and if it can
be said of America that whole town