esents--tangible intimations, as it were, of its
existence.

He had had two hours to spare at Liverpool before his train left
Lime Street. They had flown in the rapture of his shopping. To
follow his progress through Castle Street and Bond Street, the
casual observer would have deemed him possessed by a blind and
maniac lust of miscellaneous spending. But there had been method in
that madness, a method simple and direct. He had stalked first of
all into a great silk-mercer's and demanded a silk suitable for an
old lady, a satin suitable for a young lady, another satin for a
lady--not so young. Then, suddenly remembering that his mother used
to yearn even in widowhood for plum color, while Minnie (who was
pretty and had red hair) fancied a moss-green, and Kate (who was not
pretty) a rose-pink, he neither paused nor rested till he had
obtained these tints. Lace, too--his mother had had a perfect
passion for lace, unsatisfied because of its ideal nature--a lace of
her dreams. He had decided on one or two fine specimens of old
point. He supposed this would be the nearest approach to the ideal,
being the most expensive. Then he had to get a few diamond pins,
butterflies, true-love knots, and so on, to fix it with. And, while
he was about it, a diamond necklace, and a few little trifles of
that sort for Minnie and Kate. Then their figures (dimly dowdy) had
come back to him across the years, one plain, the other pretty but
peculiar. He accounted for that by remembering that Kate had been
literary, while Minnie was musical.

So he had just turned in at a bookseller's and stated that he
wanted some books--say about twenty or thirty pounds' worth. The
man of books had gauged his literary capacity in a glance, and
suggested that he had better purchase the Hundred Best Books.
"Well," he had said (rather sharply, for time was getting on), "I
reckon I don't want any but the best." In the same spirit he had
approached the gentleman in the piano-forte emporium and ordered a
Steinway Grand to be forwarded when he knew his permanent address.
For as yet it was uncertain which county contained it, that
princely residence--the old manor-house or baronial hall--in which
henceforth they would live together in affluence. He didn't exactly
see them there, those three queer, dowdy little women. God forgive
him, it was his fault if they went shabby. He remembered how they
used to stint themselves, eating coarse food and keeping no
servant, so