"That makes it worse. You know old Brock--he's an ordinary labourer. While Sidney is a common young fellow who can't even speak English. They are not fit to lick the polish off your shoes." "But then I don't want the polish licked off my shoes; it's enough trouble putting it on. I do not understand the Brocks, and I can't imagine why Miss Teenie wouldn't tell me her whole name. If I could have gone to Black Anchor on Sunday, I might have found out something." "These Dollies and Teenies, and painted females, are no relations of such common chaps. And I won't have you speaking to any of them." "Really!" she murmured with great deliberation. "No, I won't; and they are not to write either--I heard something about the post. Just suppose you had thrown yourself away utterly, suppose you had lowered yourself so fearfully as to have got engaged to this Sidney instead of to a Christian gentleman--how awful it would have been!" Nellie changed colour and gazed significantly at her left hand, which was unadorned by any lover's circlet. "You would not only have lost me, which would have been bad enough, but I should have lost the furniture, all my dear uncle's precious antiquities and priceless curios--" "Which would have been far worse," she added. "It would have been dreadful. Now I have secured all the furniture to you--" "I did that for myself; I got it from Mr. Taverner," she interrupted. "But I advised Aunt Sophy to make her will. Of course I was thinking of myself--we must do that sometimes--but I was quite unselfish in the matter. I knew if the furniture was left to you, it would be the same as--as--" "Be careful, or you'll spoil the unselfishness," she broke in gently. "Things have come to a head now," George continued. "You are going away tomorrow, and, of course, you will never see these horrible people again. We must do something, Nellie--we must be reckless, as we are both getting on in life. This is the third of September, and I do think before the month is out we ought to--I mean something should be done. Shall we settle on the last day of the month? I have quite made up my mind to live with Aunt Sophy; it will be good for her, and cheap for us." "This is what the Americans call a proposition," she murmured. "Then when she dies, there will be the furniture all round us. And Kezia can go on living with us, imagining that the furniture is hers, until she too departs in peace. We can teach Aunt Sophy how to save money, and show her how to invest it for our benefit. It looks to me as if we'd got the future ready-made." "Is there anything very serious in all this?" she asked. "Well, it's not like a bad illness, or any great disaster. It's comfort, happiness, all that sort of thing. When we are in for a jolly good time, we don't regard that as serious." "But what is to happen on the last day of the month?"