Among the other things to which he had objected Donald Lindsay included jewellery. He wore none himself; had he had his way he would have called no man an acquaintance who did. He disliked to see jewellery even on a woman. On an elderly woman he esteemed it bad enough; like the cynic he was, he held that the average elderly woman very properly felt that she was only worth the net value of what she had on her. On a girl, to his thinking, it was impossible; if ever he encountered, under his own roof, young women who were, as they fancied, ornamented by products of the jeweller's art, he was apt to make such plain-spoken comments that Nora always endeavoured to warn her girl acquaintances to put aside their ornaments while, at any rate, her father was about. Nora herself had only had four pieces of jewellery in her life. One was a plain gold watch, which her father had given her when she was at school, which she then wore attached to a plain black ribbon; another was a gold locket, in which was her father's portrait, which she had worn on the same black ribbon. The other two articles had been presents from Robert Spencer--her engagement ring, and another locket, in which was his portrait. These she had returned to him on the previous day, together with his letters. So that all the jewellery she now had was the gold watch and the locket with the portrait of her father. These, she decided, came in the same category as the eight pounds fourteen and eightpence; she was entitled to regard them as her very own. Her wardrobe presented difficulties. She had heaps of pretty dresses; quantities of all sorts of pretty clothes; the puzzle was, what to take and what to leave. She knew, from experience, that if her garments were turned into cash they would not fetch a great deal, however much they might previously have cost, or however little they might have been worn; so that if she took all her clothes she was aware that she would not be depriving her creditors of an appreciable sum of money. It was the difficulty of selection which troubled her. Obviously elaborate and costly evening dresses consorted ill with a fortune of eight pounds fourteen and eightpence, which represented both capital and income; in that sense the daintier and prettier they were, the more undesirable they were. Yet--she loved her pretty frocks; only a woman could understand how hard it seemed to her to have to part from them. With them were entwined so many associations; she wore this one on that never-to-be-forgotten night when Robert first asked her to be his wife; that when he slipped the engagement ring upon her finger; how pretty she had thought it! how she had kissed it when she was alone! She blushed at the memory.