He plunged into a rather rambling description of John Alexander Goble. He was evidently no more anxious to get to business than Joan. At last Miss Gaymer inquired,-- "Well, Hughie, have you fixed up my affairs?" "Yes," said Hughie slowly. "Do you want details?" "Mercy, no! I don't know anything about business, and I don't believe you do either, Hughie. _Do_ you?" "Not much," confessed the trustee. "However, I must tell you at once, Joey, that your income won't be nearly as large as I expected--" "Right O!" replied Joan cheerfully. "When do I start for the workhouse?" "It's not quite so bad as that," said Hughie, "but--" "What am I worth?" inquired the practical Miss Gaymer. "I can't quite tell you," said Hughie in a hesitating fashion. "You see"--he appeared to be choosing his words rather carefully--"the nominal value of investments, and their actual cash equivalent--" Joan put her fingers in her ears. "Stop!" she cried, "or I shall scream! I don't know an asset from a liability, except that in the arithmetic book brokerage is one-eighth, and--Never mind! I should never understand. How much am I to have a year? Tell me that." "Supposing it should be a mere trifle," said Hughie slowly, "what would you do?" Miss Gaymer puckered her brow thoughtfully. "You mean, if I hadn't enough to live on?" Hughie nodded. "Well, I shouldn't be a governess, I don't think. I love children, but children are always perfectly diabolical to their governess, and I shouldn't be able to stand their mothers, either. No: governesses are off! I shouldn't mind being a typewriter, though, or a secretary,--not that I can typewrite, or even spell,--provided it was to a really nice man. An author, you know, or a Cabinet Minister. He could walk about the room, rumpling up his hair and getting the stuff off his chest, and I would sit there like a little mouse, in a neat black skirt and a white silk blouse,--_perhaps_ one or two carnations pinned on,--looking very sweet and taking it all down." "It's a pretty picture," said Hughie drily. "Yes, isn't it?" said Miss Gaymer, with genuine enthusiasm. "I think," she continued, soaring to still greater heights, "that I should like to go on the stage best of all. Of course, it wouldn't be the slightest good my going on the proper stage--learning parts, and all that; but a piece like 'The Merry Widow,' with different frocks for each act and just a few choruses to sing in, would be top-hole! _Say_ I'm a pauper, Hughie!" "You're not--thank God!" was Hughie's brutal but earnest response. "All right, then! Don't bite my head off!" said Miss Gaymer, with unimpaired good temper. "Let us resume. How much are you going to give me?" "How much can you live on?" "Well, I was talking about it to Ursula Harbord--you know her, don't you?" "I do," said Hughie, making a wry face.