id. "Let us make it beautiful.
Let us have something to remember."

Money, it seemed, was necessary to a memorable engagement.

Maizie at sight of him opened her heart. Shirley's friends hugged and
kissed her and declared her lover to be all she had promised. The rich
aunt regarded him with a disfavor she was at some pains to voice.

"Shirley tells me," she informed him, with the arrogant assurance of the
very rich, "that you're poor. Then I think you're foolish to get
married--to Shirley, at least. _I_ wanted her to take Sam Hardy. I hope
you understand my checks will stop when she's married."

"But you'll still give her your love, won't you?"

"Of course, but what's that got to do with it?"

"Having that," said David, with the arrogant assurance of young men in
love, "Shirley will be content."

The rich aunt stared. "Humph!" she sniffed, "You're not even grown up.
On your own head be it!"

Shirley took some risks in inviting these visits. The picture David had
got had her and Maizie living in dingy rooms, marks of hardship and
privation thick around them. In fact, he found her a charming hostess in
a cozy little apartment, comfortably furnished, with pretty dishes on the
table and even a few pictures on the walls. And clearly, to eyes that
saw, it was homely faithful Maizie whose arduous but well-paid
secretaryship financed this menage; Maizie who, returning home tired from
her long day, got the dinner; Maizie who washed the dishes, that
Shirley's hands might not be spoiled, and did the mending when the weekly
wash came back. Shirley set the table, sewed on jabots and did yards of
tatting. Her "work" consisted of presiding over the reference room of a
public library, telling shabby uninteresting young men where to find
works on evolution and Assyrian temples and Charlemagne. This position
was hers because her rich aunt's husband had political influence and her
salary, together with the checks from Aunt Clara--not so big as the
latter would have had David suppose but still not to be sneezed
at--generally went to buy "extras," little luxuries working girls do not
often enjoy.

But David was in love; he saw only the mistress of his heart. And
Shirley, who had the habit of contrasting what she had with what she
wanted to have, did not see any risk incurred.

"It's been such a grind to-day," she sighed, one afternoon when David
went to the library to escort her home. "Fussing half the day with a