other hand flats are compact, and one knows almost at a glance what
one's expenses are likely to be. I have been consulting Rivers--you know
how often I have talked to you of my friend Archie Rivers--and he thinks
on the whole that a flat would be advisable; we avoid rates and taxes
and all those sort of worries, and if we like to shut up house for a
week, and run down to the Rectory, why there we are, you know; for the
house-porter sees to our rooms, and we run no risk from burglars. But
what do you say yourself, darling, for that is the main point?"

Hilda had read this letter with a beating heart and a certain pleasant
sense of exhilaration at breakfast that morning, but then this was
before the blow came--before Aunt Marjorie's shriek had sounded through
the room, and before Hilda had caught a glimpse of her father's face
with the gray tint spreading all over it, before she had heard his
tremulous words:

"Yes, Marjorie! God help us! We are ruined."

Hilda read the letter now with very different feelings; somehow or other
all the rose light had gone out of it. She was a very inexperienced girl
as far as money matters were concerned. Until to-day money seemed to
have little part or lot in her life; it had never stirred her nature to
its depths, it had kindly supplied her with necessities and luxuries; it
had gilded everything, but she had never known where the gilt came from.
When she engaged herself to Jasper, he told her that, for the present at
least, he was a comparatively poor man; he had three hundred a year of
his own. This he assured her was a mere bagatelle, but as he was almost
certain to earn as much more in his profession, and as Hilda had money,
he thought they might marry if she did not mind living very prudently.
Of course Hilda did not mind--she knew nothing at all of the money part.
The whole thing meant love and poetry to her, and she disliked the word
money coming into it.

To-day, however, things looked different. For the first time she got a
glimpse of Tragedy. How mean of it, how horrible of it to come in this
guise! She pressed her hand to her forehead, and wondered what her lover
could mean when he talked of rates and taxes, and asked her to decide
between a flat and a house.

"I don't know what to say," she murmured to herself. "Perhaps we shall
not be married at all at present. Perhaps Jasper will say we can't
afford it. Perhaps I ought to answer his question about the flat--but I
don't