“Oh, you’ve got a piano,” was her first observation, and she flew to the instrument, and seated herself, and began to play. She played without pause for nearly an hour, I think: Chopin, Chopin, Chopin. And when she rose, I said, “Would you mind telling me why you—a brilliant pianist like you—why you haven’t a piano in your own rooms?” “We can’t afford one,” she answered simply. “What do you mean—you can’t afford one?” “He says we can’t afford one. Don’t you know—we are very poor?” “You can’t be very poor,” I exclaimed. “Your mother was rich.” “Yes, my mother was rich. I don’t know what has become of her money.” “Didn’t she leave a will?” “Oh, yes, she left a will. She left a will making my step-father my guardian, my trustee.” “Well, what has he done with your money?” “I don’t know. I only know that we are very poor—that we can’t afford any luxuries—that we can just barely contrive to live, in the quietest manner. He hardly ever gives me any money for myself. A few shillings, very rarely, when I ask him.” “My dear child,” I cried, “I see it all, I see it perfectly. You’ve got plenty of money, you’ve got your mother’s fortune. But he’s spending it for his own purposes. He’s paying for the printing of his gigantic book with it. Twelve volumes, and plates, coloured plates! It’s exactly like him. The only thing he’s conscious of is the importance of publishing his book. He needs money. He takes it where he finds it. He’s spending your money for the printing of his book; and that’s why you have to live in dreary lodgings in the dreariest part of London, and do without a piano. He doesn’t care how he lives—he doesn’t know—he’s unconscious of everything but his book. My dear child, you must stop him, you mustn’t let him go on.” Israela was incredulous at first, but I argued and insisted, till, in the end, she said, “Perhaps you are right. But even so, what can I do? How can I stop him?” “Ah, that’s a question for a solicitor. We must see a solicitor. A solicitor will know how to stop him.” But at this proposal, Israela shook her head. “Oh, no, I will have no solicitor. Even supposing your idea is true, I can’t set a lawyer upon my mother’s husband. After all, what does it matter? Perhaps he is right. Perhaps the publication of his book is very important. I’m sure my mother would have thought so. It was her money. Perhaps he is right to spend it for the publication of his book.” Israela positively declined to consult a solicitor; and so they continued to live narrowly in Pimlico, and he proceeded with the issue of The Final Extensions of Monopantology, in twelve volumes, with coloured plates. Meanwhile, the brown London autumn had turned into a black London winter; and Israela, delicate-looking at its outset, grew more and more delicate-looking every day. “After all, what does it matter? The money will be his, and he can do as he wishes with it honestly as soon as I am dead,” she said to me, one evening, with a smile I did not like.