's character seemed to have provoked her
beyond endurance.

'If you have any sense of shame in you,' she broke out, 'you ought to
be ashamed of what you have just said! Your ingratitude disgusts me.
I leave you to speak with her, Henry--you won't mind it!' With this
significant intimation that he too had dropped out of his customary
place in her good opinion, she left the room.

The nurse received the smart reproof administered to her with every
appearance of feeling rather amused by it than not. When the door had
closed, this female philosopher winked at Henry.

'There's a power of obstinacy in young women,' she remarked. 'Miss
Agnes wouldn't give my lord up as a bad one, even when he jilted her.
And now she's sweet on him after he's dead. Say a word against him,
and she fires up as you see. All obstinacy! It will wear out with
time. Stick to her, Master Henry--stick to her!'

'She doesn't seem to have offended you,' said Henry.

'She?' the nurse repeated in amazement--'she offend me? I like her in
her tantrums; it reminds me of her when she was a baby. Lord bless
you! when I go to bid her good-night, she'll give me a big kiss, poor
dear--and say, Nurse, I didn't mean it! About this money, Master
Henry? If I was younger I should spend it in dress and jewellery. But
I'm too old for that. What shall I do with my legacy when I have got
it?'

'Put it out at interest,' Henry suggested. 'Get so much a year for it,
you know.' 'How much shall I get?' the nurse asked.

'If you put your hundred pounds into the Funds, you will get between
three and four pounds a year.'

The nurse shook her head. 'Three or four pounds a year? That won't
do! I want more than that. Look here, Master Henry. I don't care
about this bit of money--I never did like the man who has left it to
me, though he was your brother. If I lost it all to-morrow, I
shouldn't break my heart; I'm well enough off, as it is, for the rest
of my days. They say you're a speculator. Put me in for a good thing,
there's a dear! Neck-or-nothing--and that for the Funds!' She snapped
her fingers to express her contempt for security of investment at three
per cent.

Henry produced the prospectus of the Venetian Hotel Company. 'You're a
funny old woman,' he said. 'There, you dashing speculator--there is
neck-or-nothing for you! You must keep it a secret from Miss Agnes,
mind. I'm not at all sure that she would approve of my helping you to
this investment.'

The nurse