d Osborn.

"You see, I told the tradespeople to send in weekly books and--and if
I don't pay, they'll wonder."

"Don't fret yourself, kitten. I'll give it to you. But--"

Osborn put down his coffee cup in a final way.

"The fact is, Marie, you see--I don't want you to think me mean--"

"Oh, Osborn!"

"No, but the fact is, it just happens I'm able to give it to you
to-day, because I've got a little in the bank. But our honeymoon and
the first instalments on the furniture and your engagement ring ran
through most of it, and--and so there's only a little left--about
twenty pounds or so. My people lived on an annuity, you know; they
only left me savings. Well, I thought it seemed snug to keep a balance
of twenty pounds or so for emergencies, you know. But I'll draw a
cheque on it for you with pleasure. Two pounds ten? All right."

"But, Osborn," said Marie, wide-eyed, "can't you give it to me out of
your--"

"My screw doesn't come in till the end of the week," Osborn explained.
He flushed and for the first time looked at her a little haughtily.

"I'm sorry," she murmured; "perhaps we ought to make some arrangement
and I'll keep to it."

"That's it," he said, still slightly uncomfortable; "now look here,
dearie--"

"I'll get my account book and put it down."

"Does she have an account book?" said Osborn more lightly. "How
knowing!"

Marie brought a book, and opened it upon her knee, and sat, pencil
poised. She was very earnest. "How much ought we to spend?"

"You know what my screw is," said Osborn, as if unwilling to
particularise.

Marie wrote at the top of her page, "Two hundred pounds."

"Forty pounds rent," she wrote next.

"And my odd expenses, lunch and clothes, and so on," said Osborn,
"have never been less than sixty or seventy pounds, you know."

She wrote slowly. "Sixty to seventy pounds, expenses," when he stopped
her.

"I'll have to curtail that!" he exclaimed.

In the ensuing silence both man and wife thought along the same track.
It suddenly gave him a nasty jar, to hit up against the necessity of
stopping those pleasant little spendings, those odd drinks, those
superior smokes, the last word in colourings for shirts and ties. Of
course, such stoppage was well worth while. Oh, immensely so!

And she had a lump in her throat. She thought: "He'll find all this a
burden. He's had all he wants; and so've I. I wish we were rich."

"Look here, darling," said Osborn. "How much'll food cos