There were no more quarrels between Ronald and myself, but in the depth of my heart, I owned that our Eden was fast becoming a sorry wilderness. Our debts increased, and all my quiet savings were of no avail. It was indeed but "lost labour" for me to eat the bread of carefulness, for Ronald, sure of that glorious future of which he had spoken, was not disposed to deny himself little comforts. When he dined at home he was not contented with the plain fare which had satisfied him in our earlier wedded days. William Greystock had developed his natural taste for luxuries. Every man is, I believe, a gourmand at heart, but the chance of being a glutton does not come to all. Greystock gave my husband plenty of opportunities of indulging his liking for dainties; and when Ronald and I ate at our table together, I had to listen to long lectures on the art of cooking. They were not uninstructive lectures; most women will do well to listen when a lord of the creation discourses of roast and boiled, sauce and gravy; but the consciousness of an empty purse made all this talk a weariness to we. Worse than a weariness—it was a pain. One July afternoon, when I was sitting at the open window with my eternal mending work, a drowsiness began to steal over me, and my hands dropped heavily on my lap. It was a hot day; far off in country places the corn was ripening fast, and scarlet poppies were flaunting among the golden grain. I shut my eyes and called up a vision of the arbour at the end of my grandfather's garden—a veritable bower— "Where honeysuckles, ripened by the sun, Forbid the sun to enter." Once more I seemed to tread the long grass-path that led to the bower; once more a rush of perfume, intoxicatingly sweet, swept over me, and filled me with delight. Again the overblown damask roses shed a shower of petals at my feet, and the large white lilies stood in stately file on each side of the old walk. I was back again in the delicious, dreamy place where my childish days were spent, and all the cares of the present life were forgotten and blotted out, when a loud, harsh noise suddenly broke the spell. It was only a double knock, but who does not know how unwelcome such a sound may be in the middle of an afternoon nap? Sleep was not such a common blessing that I could afford to lose ever so little of it. Many wakeful nights had made a few moments of oblivion as precious as gold; my sojourn in happy dreamland might have done me a world of good, if it had not been cut short.