or a grateful city to rechristen our street Viale Aurora
the Magnificent."

Tom Bewick laughed, nodding to himself with an effect of relish. He
murmured, "Aurora the Magnificent!"

"Aurora the Magnificent--Aurora the Magnificent is all very well,"
Estelle took up again with animation, "but she's already spending her
capital."

Bewick did not allow himself to appear startled or troubled; still, he
was made pensive by this. His look at Estelle invited her to go on and
tell him the rest, just how bad it was. She was leaning forward, with
her elbows on the table, one hand slipping the rings on and off a finger
of the other, in her quick way.

"You know what her income is. It would have provided for all this,"--she
took in the luxury around them by a gesture of the head,--"but no income
can suffice to set up in housekeeping all the picturesque paupers in
Florence. That's why I was so anxious for you to come, and wrote you as
I did. You can curb her; I can't. I have no influence with her in that
way, and I simply can't sit still and see her throw away all this good
money that was intended to provide her with comforts for the rest of her
life. Unless somebody looks after it, she won't have a penny left. You
must talk to her, Doctor Bewick. Don't let her know, though, that I put
you up to it. You can ask a plain question, as it's right and natural
for you to do, then when she answers you can lecture her. She'll take it
from you."

Bewick, with his sensible face, looked as if he saw justice and reason
in all Miss Madison had said to him; yet he did not go on with the
subject. It might be that he felt delicate, in a masculine way, about
uttering to a lady's best friend any criticism of that lady's mode of
doing or being--criticism which he might feel no difficulty perhaps in
voicing to herself. Estelle took this into consideration and, his
reticence notwithstanding, relied on him to do his duty.

A diversion occurred in the shape of a knock at the door--the door
leading to the kitchen-stairs. It was but the scratch of one fingernail
on the wood. Tiny as the sound was, it did not have to be repeated
before Estelle ran to open. A small four-footed person entered, the
bigness of a baby's muff and the whiteness of a marquis's powdered wig.
Estelle caught him up from the floor and with a coo of affection, "What
um doing in the kitchen, little rogums?" set him on the table, under the
lamp, for Doctor Tom to see how utterly beaut